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TRAGEDY 

BY 

ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE 



TRAGEDY 



BY 
ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVEBSITT 

AUTHOR OF "THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUMONT 

AND FLETCHER ON SHAKSPERE " 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(Cbe laiter^iUe pttssy CambcitigE 

1908 



fwo Oopies rtwiiv.^.i 

IViAY 2 1908 



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COPYRIGHT I90S BY ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published May iqoS 



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PREFACE 

^ This book attempts to trace the course of English tragedy 
from its beginnings to the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
-j tury, and to indicate the part which it has played in the 
^ history both of the theatre and of literature. All tragedies 
of the sixteenth century are noticed, because of their his- 
torical interest and their close relationship to Shakespeare, 
but after 1600 only representative plays have been con- 
sidered. The aim of this series has been kept in view, and 
the discussion, whether of individual plays or of dramatic 
conditions, has been determined by their importance in 
the study of a literary type. Tragedy in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries has attracted very little critical atten- 
tion, and in those fields the book is something of a pioneer. 
The Elizabethan drama, on the contrary, has been the 
subject of a vast amount of antiquarian, biographical, and 
literary research, without which such a treatment as I 
have attempted would be almost impossible. In order, 
however, to keep the main purpose in view, it has been 
necessary to omit nearly all notice of the processes of 
research or the debates of criticism, and to give only 
what seem to me the results. To indicate at every point 
my reliance on my own investigations or my indebted- 
ness to the researches of others would, indeed, necessi- 
tate doubling the size of the book. Its readers will not 
require an apology for its brevity, but I regret that I can 



vi PREFACE 

offer only this inadequate acknowledgment of the great 
assistance I have received not merely from the studies 
mentioned in the Bibliographical Notes, but also from 
many others that have directly or indirectly contributed 
to my discussion. 

I am indebted to Dr. Ernest Bernbaum, who very 
kindly read chapters viii and ix, and made a number of 
suggestions. I have also the pleasure of expressing my 
great obligations to Professors Brander Matthews, Jeffer- 
son B. Fletcher, and William A. Neilson, who have read 
both the manuscript and the proof-sheets and given me 
the generous benefit of their most helpful criticism. 

A. H. T. 

New York, March, 1908. 



CONTENTS 
Chapter I. Definitions 1 



/ 



Chapter II. The Medieval and the Classical 

Influences 21 

Chapter III. The Beginnings of Tragedy ... 48 ^J 
Chapter IV. Marlowe and his Contemporaries . 77 ^ 
Chapter V. Shakespeare and his Contemporaries 136 y 

Chapter VI. Shakespeare 181 / 

Chapter VII. The Later Elizabethans .... 196 

Chapter VIII. The Restoration 243 

Chapter IX. The Eighteenth Century .... 281 
Chapter X. The Romantic Movement .... 326 

Chapter XI. Conclusion 366 

Index 379 




TRAGEDY 

CHAPTER I 

DEFINITIONS 

HERE is little difficulty in selecting the plays 
that should be included in a history of Eng- 
lish tragedy. Since the middle of the six- 
teenth century there have always been plays 
commonly received as tragedies, and others so closely 
resembling these that they require consideration in any 
comprehensive study. ;ttow far these plays present the 
common characteristics of a type, how far they consti- 
tute a clearly defined form of the drama, and how far 
they may be connected from one period to another in a 
continuous development — are questions better answered 
at the book's end than at its beginning. Some questions 
of the definition of tragedy, however, may well be prelim- 
inary to a study of its history. The very term " English 
tragedy" involves two precarious abstractions. It sepa- 
rates tragedy from the drama of which it is a part, and 
it separates English tragedies from those of other lan- 
guages to which they are related in character and origin. 
In attempting a definition, we may question the reality 
of these abstract separations by which our later dis- 
cussions are to be conveniently limited; for a definition 
can be attained only through the distinction of tragedy 



2 TRAGEDY 

from other forms of the drama, and through a consider- 
ation of the varying conceptions of tragedy in different 
periods and nations. 

We may begin very empirically with an element com- 
mon to all tragedies and roughly distinguishing them 
from other forms of drama; noticed, indeed, in all theo- 
retical definitions, though its importance is often blurred 
and it receives only scant attention from Aristotle. He 
refers to the third part of the plot as " the tragic incident, 
a destructive or painful action, such as death on the 
stage, bodily agony, wounds, and the like." If his mean- 
ing of "a destructive or painful action" is extended to 
include mental as well as physical suffering, we have a 
definition of an indispensable element in tragedy and 
a conspicuous distinction from comedy. 

This definition has had ample recognition in practice 
and in popular opinion, as in the sixteenth-century 
idea of a tragedy as a play involving deaths, and in the 
present common conception of tragedy as requiring an 
unhappy ending. These uncritical opinions, however, 
introduce amendments that are not quite corollaries. 
The happy ending has never been completely excluded. 
Aristotle, while pronouncing in favor of the unhappy 
ending as best suited to producing tragic effect, recog- 
nized the possibility and popularity of a conclusion that 
limited punishment to the vicious. In modern times the 
salvation of the virtuous in tragedy has had warm de- 
fenders, including Racine and Dr. Johnson; and the 
essentiality of either an unhappy ending or of deaths 



DEFINITIONS 3 

has been generally denied. Evidently either is a natural 
but not inevitable accompaniment of suffering and dis- 
aster. A tragedy may permit of relief or even recovery 
for the good, or it may minimize the external and physi- 
cal elements of suffering; but its action must be largely 
unhappy though its end is not, and destructive even if it 
does not lead to deaths. 

Our working definition, however, does not attempt to 
indicate the qualities necessary to excellence in tragedy 
or to particularize in respect to the treatment of the action. 
It offers no distinction, where recent critics have been 
careful to make one, between tragedy and what we to- 
day call melodrama.^ The relation between the two is 
similar to that between comedy and farce. Melodrama 
is more sensational, less serious; it attains its effects by 
spectacles, machines, externals, while tragedy deals with 
character and motive; it reaches its conclusions throilgh 
accidents and surprises, while tragedy seeks to show the* 
cause of every effect. But the distinction is general and 
relative rather than specific and absolute. The use of 
witches to foretell actions and characters would of itself 
be a melodramatic device, and so it is in Middleton*s 
" Witch," but not in " Macbeth." Congreve's " Mourning 
Bride" is a melodrama, judged by our standards at 
present, but for many years it was considered one of the 
great tragedies in the language. A stage presentation, in 
fact, almost presupposes external, spectacular, and sen- 

^ For a discussion of an earlier meaning of the term "melodrama" 
and the origin of its present use, see chap. x. 



4 TRAGEDY 

sational effects, which must vary according to the the- 
atrical conditions and the taste of the day, as well as in 
response to the artistic purpose and treatment. The 
distinction between melodrama and tragedy, in short, 
is hardly more than between bad tragedy and good, or 
between a lower and a higher type. So far as a separa- 
tion of the two has been made, it has been the result of 
centuries of experience. It cannot readily be fixed by 
rule or definition ; it requires historical treatment. 

Our definition, again, affords a rough rather than an 
exact separation from comedy. The two species cannot, 
indeed, be absolutely distinguished. In the theatre to- 
day there are many plays which one hesitates to classify 
as either tragedy or comedy. And there have always 
been, even in the Greek theatre, classes of plays recog- 
nized as neither the one nor the other. Again, a play 
presenting various persons and incidents is necessarily 
complex in material and emotional effect, and may 
mingle suffering and ruin with happiness and success, 
so that whether its main effect is tragic or comic may 
depend on its point of view or its general tone. The 
divisions of tragedy and comedy are neither mutually 
exclusive, nor are they together inclusive of all drama. 
Theoretically, there is perhaps ground for doubting 
whether other divisions might not be established more 
essential and more comprehensive. Comedy in particu- 
lar comprises plays differing so widely in every respect 
that almost no common characteristics can be found. 
Yet tragedy and comedy have long been, and still are. 



DEFINITIONS 5 

accepted as the main divisions of the drama. The very 
names of the other forms, " tragicomedy," " Sdiaus'piely'* 
"emotional drama," "social drama," *'drame,'* or 
merely "play," by their lack of distinctiveness, testify 
to the significance of the division of dramatic action 
and effects into the two classes, tragic and comic. From 
merely a theoretical point of view, indeed, we may recog- 
nize that a dramatic action, through its brevity and its 
stage presentation, if for no other reasons, has a suit- 
ability for these effects not possessed by other forms of 
literature. But the importance and definition of the two 
forms, and especially that of tragedy, depend less on 
theory than on historical origins and development. 

If we attempt to fortify our working definition so that it 
may more effectively separate tragedy on the one hand 
from melodrama and on the other from comedy and the 
more or less neutral species, we are driven to consider 
the numerous and shifting conceptions that have marked 
the progress of the classical tradition in modern Europe. 
Although some approach to the tragic may have been 
manifest from the beginnings of the drama in the mimetic 
ceremonies of primitive culture, our present distinction 
between tragedy and comedy traces back to Athens, 
where tragedy as a form of literature had its first great 
development and where it received its first critical defi- 
nition. Nothing closely corresponding to the two forms, 
as there developed and defined, is to be found in the 
dramas of China, India, or medieval Europe. Tragedy 
is an inheritance from Greece and Rome, not received 



6 TRAGEDY 

by Western Europe until the Renaissance. There was, 
to be sure, much that was tragical in the widespread 
religious drama of the Middle Ages; and there were a 
number of plays that in content and effect might claim 
a place with later tragedies; but it was not until the 
revival of the classics that the revelation of a highly de- 
veloped form of drama led to the creation of a distinct 
species caUed tragedy, in the vernacular literatures of 
Spain, Italy, France, and England. 

The classical tradition in the beginning was affected 
by the mistaken theories of medieval encyclopedists and 
by humanistic misinterpretations of the classics. In 
every nation it came into conflict with the traditions of 
the medieval drama, and underwent great modifications ; 
in England an amalgamation of the two traditions result- 
ing in a tragedy widely different from either. During four 
centuries the changing theatrical conditions, the changing 
social conditions, the diversity of national peculiarities, 
have resulted in ideas of tragedy at variance with one 
another and with the classics. Shakespeare's conception 
of tragedy was very different from Aristotle's, and very 
different from Brunetiere's or Ibsen's. Indeed, the con- 
ceptions formed by various of Shakespeare's contempo- 
raries, Sidney, Mariowe, Jonson, Chapman, and Fletcher, 
so far as we can determine, have pronounced differences 
though they have common resemblances. It would 
require a larger book than the present one to consider 
adequately the differences and agreements merely of 
critical theory and dogma in modem Europe. Yet the 



DEFINITIONS 7 

literary tradition, in spite of all these changes and varia- 
tions, has remained continuous. Whether fixed in the 
form of rules, or discernible only in the general resem- 
blances of current practices, or represented by the great 
models of Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Racine, it has influ- 
enced every playwright. He has striven to write more or 
less in accord with some critical theory, in imitation of 
some author, or in conformity to some fashion; or he 
has written in opposition to theory, example, or fashion. 

It is the purpose of this book to trace the course of this 
tradition in the English drama, to appraise the inheritance 
of each age from the preceding ages, its borrowings from 
other national inheritances, and the profit and loss due 
to its own invention or industry. All that may be at- 
tempted here by way of preliminary definition is a glance 
at the main European course of the classical tradition 
to see what have been from time to time considered the 
essentials of tragedy and to ask how far there has been 
any agreement in regard to these essentials. 

The basis for much of modern theorizing has been 
Aristotle's tentative yet searching analysis of Athenian 
tragedy. Many of the peculiarities of Athenian tragedy 
— its structure without acts but with a chorus, its limi- 
tation of three actors on the stage at once, its narrow 
range of mythological subjects — are evidently not essen- 
tial to securing tragic effect. Even the unities, whether 
as observed in the Greek theatre or as defined by French 
and Italian critics, may, after generations of debate, be 
safely relegated as nonessential. Omitting, then, what 



8 TRAGEDY 

no one would now insist upon as requisite, we may derive 
from the " Poetics " something hke the following : — 

Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of 
pity and fear. Its action should be single and complete, 
presenting a reversal of fortune, involving persons re- 
nowned and of superior attainments, and it should be 
written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic 
expression. 

Much more than this has been derived from Aristotle 
by modern theorists, but this much of the classical con- 
ception 'has generally survived in modern tragedy. H 
the meaning of "a single and complete action" be 
stretched a little, this definition includes the plays of 
Shakespeare as well as those of Racine, and nearly all 
tragedies from the Renaissance to the present. 

In one important respect, however, this definition falls 
short of describing Greek tragedy, and is still more inad- 
equate for modern. Aristotle emphasized the action above 
the characterization, and devoted much attention to the 
requirements of the plot. He did not, moreover, recog- 
nize the importance of the element of conflict, whether 
between man and circumstance, or between men, or 
within the mind of man. The Greek tragedies themselves 
had not failed to exhibit such conflicts; the medieval 
drama, notably in the moralities, emphasized moral con- 
flict; and Renaissance tragedy, wherever it showed any 
independence, particularly in England and Shakespeare, 
took for its theme the conflict of human will with other 
forces. The importance of this modification of the 



DEFINITIONS 9 

Aristotelian view received only slow critical recognition. 
But it was everywhere exemplified in practice, in French 
classical drama as well as in Shakespeare, in plays imi- 
tating the Greeks as well as in plays revolting from their 
models. After a time this modification of the classical 
tradition came to have a distinct place in literary theory. 
Hegel gave it philosophical elaboration, and, in the ro- 
mantic movement, when dramatists in different languages 
turned to Shakespeare for a model, they naturally assumed 
what may be called the Shakespearean definition. This 
important amendment to the tragic tradition may be 
briefly stated : — 

The action of a tragedy should represent a conflict of 
wills, or of will with circumstance, or will with itself, and 
should therefore be based on the characters of the per- 
sons involved. A typical tragedy is concerned with a 
great personality engaged in a struggle that ends disas-. 
trously. 

In the Aristotelian tradition thus amended by the 
Shakespearean or modern conception we have a defini- 
tion of tragedy that, in spite of differences of theorists 
and variations in practice, is extraordinarily comprehen- 
sive. This will appear if we consider briefly the separate 
elements of the definition. First: Though the range of 
emotions has been greatly widened in modern tragedy 
in comparison with classical, and though the importance 
given to love and the admission of comedy and even farce 
have complicated emotional effect in a way that Sopho- 
cles could hardly have conceived, yet "pity and fear" 



10 TRAGEDY 

still serve as well as any other terms to describe the 
emotional appeal peculiar to tragedy. The word 4>6pos, 
however, hardly indicates the emotions of admiration, 
awe, hate, horror, terror, despair, and dismay, which 
"7 belong to tragedy, and modern tragedy has appealed 
J" more largely than classical to pity and sympathy. Sec- 
^ ond : The reversal of fortune has been usually found in 
\ tragedy, though in the sense of a fall of the mighty, long 
the favorite theme, it cannot be regarded as the essen- 
tial kernel of a tragic action. Third : Though the action 
of modern tragedies has usually been less simple than 
that of the Greeks, and though double plots and many 
complications have been common, yet, after the Eliza- 
bethans and the Romanticists, the tendency to-day 
seems to be toward a return to the simplicity that 
Aristotle had in mind. Only in rare instances, as in 
" The Doll's House," has a dramatist ventured to leave 
the action in a state that might be called incomplete. 
Fourth: Though themes have changed and widened in 
range, still the great majority have been confined to 
extraordinary events and illustrious persons. Renais- 
sance and pseudo-classical theorists interpreted Aristotle 
to limit the persons of tragedy to princes or men of the 
highest rank; and tragedy, even in England, long ad- 
hered to this superficial restriction. But already in the 
sixteenth century there were authors who wrote tragedies 
of ordinary men and contemporary events; and realism 
has broken away from the literary tradition in every 
generation since. Fifth: Tragedy has generally been 



DEFINITIONS 11 

reserved for poetry, and often for poetry of the most em- 
bellished kind ; but here again realism has resorted to a 
bare style, and, particularly in the last century, to prose. 

On examination, then, the particulars of the classical 
tradition have shown extraordinary powers of survival, 
but not one of them has gone without protest and viola- 
tion. The thousands of tragedies written during four 
centuries have all had marked resemblances, and all 
important developments have preserved relationships to 
the classical species; yet it is impossible to insist on any 
one quahty of that species as essential, without encounter- 
ing examples of great tragedies that lack it. The close 
relationships among these many plays forbid the separa- 
tion of a few, distinguished by certain qualities, to be 
named as tragedies, and the rest as something else; and 
the great variations forbid the confident selection of any 
qualities as essential in the future development of tragedy. 
The modern amendments, though represented by nearly 
universal practice, have not saved the classical tradition, 
and are themselves coming under question. The plays 
of Ibsen, which seem to have instituted the most important 
development in tragedy for two centuries, return to some- 
thing of the simplicity of action required by Aristotle, 
and present the struggle of individual wills as did Shake- 
speare, but are in prose and deal with contemporary 
bourgeois life, — a combination of relationships to the 
tradition wholly new. While idealization in some degree 
must be exercised in tragedy as in all forms of literature, 
it is impossible, in the light of realistic plays, to maintain 



12 TRAGEDY 

that tragic effects can be secured only through the stories 
of exceptional persons. Tragic greatness, in the sense 
demanded by the theorists, is, indeed, scarcely more 
manifest in the persons of "Romeo and Juliet" than in 
those of " Hedda Gabler." While conflict of some kind 
is essential to a dramatic action, yet it may evidently be 
minimized without destroying the artistic impressive- 
ness of suffering and disaster. Even the requirement that 
tragedy deal with the characters of individual men is 
being questioned. It is conceivable that plays in the 
future may, likeHauptmann's "The Weavers, "turn from 
the emotions of the individual to those of a class, or may 
find their destructive and painful actions in the oppres- 
sion, disaster, or mere unrest of the mass. 

Any precise and compact definition is sure to lack in 
comprehensiveness and veracity. It cannot sum up the 
facts of the past and present, much less set rules for the 
future. We seem forced to reject the possibility of any 
exact limitations for the dramatic species, to include as 
tragedies all plays presenting painful or destructive 
actions, to accept the leading elements of a literary tradi- 
tion derived from the Greeks as indicating the common 
bonds between such plays in the past, but to admit that 
this tradition, while still powerful, is variable, uncertain, 
and unauthoritative. 

But besides this literary tradition there has been a 
hardly less powerful theatrical tradition. Tragedy has 
always owed a double allegiance, to literature and to the 
theatre. A tragedy is a play, not merely a dialogue in 



DEFINITIONS 13 

poetry or prose, but a play to be interpreted by actors 
before an audience in a theatre. To these three factors 
it has had first of all to suit itself. And these factors have 
constituted conditions and standards, different and not 
less variable and transient than those of the literary tra- 
dition. The plays of iEschylus, of Shakespeare, of Cal- 
deron, and of Racine, for example, were planned for 
widely different conditions, and for conditions also widely 
different from those now present in the theatres. Except- 
ing Shakespeare's, no English tragedies of the sixteenth, 
seventeenth, eighteenth, or, one might almost say, nine- 
teenth century, are acted in our theatres to-day. The 
effect of the acted drama is consequently not only differ- 
ent from that of the drama when read, it is also subject 
to other and variable artistic standards. It aims at some 
effects not at all literary and at some likely to be limited 
by its own day and theatre. A history of tragedy must 
take into account the differences of the theatre of one 
nation from that of another, and of one period from 
another period. It must remember that to those tempo- 
rary conditions each dramatist necessarily conformed 
and that by them his achievement was directed. It may 
find some hostile to the best dramatic art, tending to 
promote melodramatic rather than tragic effects. It may 
find others that are divorced from any permanent mean- 
ing for the drama or literature. But the fact that such 
conditions are temporary should not breed contempt, for 
much great literature has been aimed not at the world or 
posterity but at the audience of the day. Out of temporary 



14 TRAGEDY 

and varying theatrical conditions have arisen the per- 
manent criteria for dramatic excellence. 

In fact, the theatre has been a conservative influence, 
tending to oppose innovation and to maintain the integ- 
rity of the form of tragedy. The essentials of its literary 
form, its length conditioned by the time of the perform- 
ance, the division into acts, scenes, or parts, and the 
growing importance of dialogue, have all been dependent 
on theatrical conditions. The characteristic qualities of 
national dramas have been in some measure the products 
of the national theatres, and only through the growing 
similarity of stage conditions are we likely to attain agree- 
ment in regard to the forms of drama. While there have 
been a multitude of tragedies that have never been acted, 
and some that have never been intended for acting, the 
attempt to write tragedy for the closet rather than for the 
stage has resulted either in adopting the supposed condi- 
tions of the Greek or some other foreign theatre, or in 
breaking away from the strict limits defined by the stage 
and wTiting lyrical medleys or dramatic monologues or 
imaginary conversations. As soon as tragedy has left the 
theatre, it has reverted to old forms or developed new and 
strange hybrids. Milton's "Samson Agonistes" and 
Swinburne's " Bothwell " are tragedies, if you will, but 
they have no place in the development of a national 
drama. Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," Browning's 
"The Ring and the Book," and Landor's "Marcellus 
and Hannibal " are all dramatic, but they cannot be in- 
cluded in any definition of the species of tragedy. Object 



DEFINITIONS 15 

as tragedy rightly may at times to the Hmitations and 
triviaHties of the theatre, it cannot safely leave its pre- 
cincts without losing its own identity. 

In the past nearly all tragedies of any effect on the 
drama's development have not only been planned for the 
stage but have succeeded when acted. This seems likely 
to be the case in the future. For the reader of a play is 
confronted by difficulties not found in other fiction ; and, 
in general, only a play suited to presentation on the stage 
is likely to secure for a reader the visualization, the im- 
personations, the illusion of actuality, similar to those 
experienced in the theatre. The fact that the drama 
requires the services of theatre and actors as well as 
author need not lessen our recognition of the responsi- 
bility and opportunities of the one or the other. The stage 
affords the first test of a play's emotional appeal, and 
perhaps the best test of its dramatic power. The con- 
summation of tragedy has been attained only when the 
dramatist has availed himself of all the aids that the 
theatre has offered. 

Thus far our attempt at definition has had to do with 
what tragedy is or has been or is likely to be, rather than 
with what it ought to be. The more difficult question has 
not been shunned by criticism, and perhaps even our 
brief discussion ought not to omit a consideration of 
tragedy's function and opportunities. These certainly 
extend beyond the theatre and include whatever is pos- 
sible for literature. As a form of literature, tragedy 
fulfills in general the same functions as other forms, 



16 TRAGEDY 

especially as fiction, of which it is one division. It has 
similar opportunities and its effects are similar in kind. 
It must be judged by the same standards, by the nature 
and power of its emotional effect, and by the lasting 
meaning of its portrayal of life; and the census of the 
centuries will be necessary to establish its greatness. 

Special qualities have, however, been assumed for the 
emotional effect of tragedy altogether apart from its 
peculiarities as drama or fiction. A peculiar function, 
a special effect, differing from other forms of literature, 
have been ascribed to it. Aristotle declared its effect to 
be the purging of the emotions, a somewhat obscure 
expression, surely incorrect if taken in the literal sense 
that Aristotle seems to have intended, but variously in- 
terpreted as referring to moral, or aesthetic reactions. 
Modern theories have too often regarded tragedy as a 
sort of exposition of the moral law, illustrating the ways 
of providence. To-day we require of tragedy a probing 
into human motive, an especial devotion to the study of 
character under great emotional stress. But has it a 
special function ? Tragedy deals with pain, yet seeks to 
give us pleasure: — this crux Tias~Been~ greatly empha- 
sized by the false antithesis between pain and pleasure. 
As a matter of fact, though our knowledge of the aesthetic 
emotions is scanty, a description of the effect of tragedy 
is hardly more obscure than that of any other form of 
literature or of any other of the fine arts. In life we are 
enormously interested in grief and suffering and disaster, 
as we are also in joy, pleasure, and success. Our news- 



DEFINITIONS 17 

papers abound in narratives of both sorts, and so do our 
novels. We are stirred by the painful emotions of our 
fellows as readily as by their pleasurable ones. The 
tragic plays a large part in many forms of literature and 
in sculpture, music, and painting. And tragedy, dedicated 
to painful actions, also interests, fascinates, absorbs us. 
It is not diverting, amusing; it is not for daily food or 
recreation, but no less it ministers to an active normal 
human interest. 

Does it carry an antidote to offset its demand upon our 
sympathies? Is there a katharsis that somehow trans- 
forms our pity and fear into relief and pleasure .^ There / 
is something of the sort in the mere exercise of violent 
emotion, which in a measure carries its own relief and 
cure. There is something also of egotistical satisfaction, 
of self-congratulation that comes with the exercise of 
sympathy, a certain exaltation that virtue has gone out 
of us. There is something again of aesthetic delight in 
the artistic mastery which we feel in any great work of 
art. The harmony of the argument, the splendor of the 
verse, the grandeur of conception and expression may 
counterbalance the painfulness of the story. Yet more, 
tragedy may bring the inspiration of greatness and en- 
durance, of purity and unselfishness of spirit. Its ideal- 
ization of character, its revelation of beauty and power - 
even in distress and downfall, may bring a reassurance 
that turns pity to exhilaration. In drama as in life there 
may come in moments of trial and ruin the visions of the 
eternities to console and exalt us. 



18 TRAGEDY 

But is it true that these elements of relief are always 
felt, or are always triumphant over our depression and 
dismay? May not the impressions of pain and destruc- 
tion be unrelieved and overwhelming? What relief or 
exaltation is there in the first impression from " CEdipus," 
"Lear," or "Ghosts"? We are filled with confusion, 
dismay, and pity. We cannot separate ourselves from 
the misery. We feel the intolerable burden of the worid's 
woe. Our sympathies struggle beneath it, vainly, despair- 
ingly. How far such emotions have any potency for 
actual accomplishment in deed may be doubtful to the 
psychologists; but surely our recognition of tragedy as 
one of the greatest imaginative achievements needs no 
other warrant than our faith that virtue lies in human 
sympathy, in the only atonement that we can offer, the 
vicarious response of our emotions to share in suffering 
and defeat. 

From the nature of its subjects, tragedy may claim a 
certain preeminence in literature. If it be not truer, as is 
sometimes asserted, than comedy or other fiction, it has 
the opportunity to be more intense, more profound, more 
permeating in its emotional effect. As of all forms of 
literature, we ask for truth to life in incident, character, 
and word ; of tragedy we ask for truth in regard to those 
things that affect us most deeply, — pain, disaster, failure, 
death. Like other forms, it may stimulate and excite, 
give pleasure and profit, convey new ideas and recall 
old, arouse questions of life and philosophy, excite mul- 
titudinous emotions; more exclusively than any other, it 



DEFINITIONS 19 

brings home to us the images of our own sorrows, and 
chastens the spirit through the outpouring of our sympa- 
thies, even our horror and despair, for the misfortunes of 
our fellows. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The student of the theory of tragedy may extend his reading through 
most books dealing at all with the theatre or drama, works of literary 
history and criticism, treatments of aesthetics in psychology and phi- 
losophy, as well as the tragedies themselves. Only the briefest direc- 
tion for such reading can be given here. Among recent works closely 
connected with the matter of the chapter, are : W. L. Courtney, The 
Idea of Tragedy in Ancient and Modem Drama (1900) ; Lewis Camp- 
bell, Tragic Drama in JEschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare (1904); 
Ferdinand Brunetiere, Uevolution litteraire de la iragedie (1903) (in 
vol. 7 of Etudes critiques) ; and Melodrame ou Tragedie (Varietes Lit- 
teraires 1904) ; Elizabeth Woodbridge, The Drama, its Law and its Tech- 
nique (1898), with bibliography. Several recent books on Shakespeare are 
concerned with dramatic theory: A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy 
(1905); T. R. Lounsbury, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (1901); 
G. P. Baker, The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (1907). 
A book now out of date and never sound, but of wide influence still, is 
Freytag's Technik des Dramas (1881), translated as The Technique of 
the Drama, Chicago (3d ed. 1900). For a study of literary criticism 
in reference to dramatic theory, Saintsbury's History of Criticism, 
3 vols. (1900-04), furnishes a compendious directory and discussion. 
An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism, by 
C. M. Gayley and F. N. Scott (1899), furnishes full bibliographical 
references with comment and direction. Of great value in their special 
fields are Butcher's edition of Aristotle's Poetics (3d ed. 1902) ; W. 
Cloetta's Beitrdge zur Litteraturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der 
Renaissance, Halle (1890), vol i; and J. E. Spingam's Literary Criticism 
in the Renaissance (1899). English critical discussions of tragedy will 
be noted in the chapters on the various historical periods. For tragedy 
in relation to aesthetic theory, full references are given in Gayley and 
Scott; and Volkelt's Msthetik des Tragischen, Munich (2d ed. 1906), 
supplies a valuable and comprehensive discussion and a directory 
and criticism of nearly all aesthetic theories since Kant. Especial men- 



20 TRAGEDY 

tion should be made of A. W. Schlegel's Vorlesungen uber dramatische 
Kunst und Litieratur (1817), translated into English in the Bohn 
edition; and to Hegel's Vorlesungen uber die /Esthetik, which closes 
with a discussion of dramatic poetry that has been suggestive of much 
later theorizing. 




CHAPTER II 

THE MEDIEVAL AND THE CLASSICAL 
INFLUENCES 

NGLISH tragedy makes its appearance at 
the very beginning of Elizabeth's reign. In 
the Middle Ages nearly all knowledge of the 
drama of the Greeks and Romans was lost, 
and the medieval drama developed without aid from 
classical precedents or models. It resulted in various 
forms, of which the miracles and the moralities were the 
most important, but it produced nothing either in form 
or matter closely resembling classical tragedy or comedy, 
and manifested no evolution toward corresponding divi- 
sions of the drama. The Renaissance gave to the world 
the plays of Seneca, Plautus, and the Athenian drama- 
tists, and, after a time, some knowledge of the classical 
theatre and dramatic art; then, through the imitation of 
these models and also through the innovations and ex- 
periments which they suggested, the influence of human- 
ism came in conflict with that of medievalism throughout 
Europe, in the drama as in other fields of literature. In 
England this conflict was still active at the middle of the 
sixteenth century. Miracle plays were still performed after 
long established fashion, and moralities continued the 
most important and numerous species of drama; but in 



22 TRAGEDY 

Latin imitations of the classical drama, in the theatrical 
activity of the schools and universities, and in the various 
developments of moralities, interludes, school-plays, and 
pageants, there were signs of a breaking away from old 
courses and of the adoption of new models, of the emer- 
gence of English comedy and tragedy as definite dramatic 
forms. Tragedy in England as elsewhere developed later 
and more slowly than comedy, but two years after Eliza- 
beth's accession the first English tragedy that has been 
preserved was performed, and " Gorboduc " thus becomes 
the starting-point for a history of English tragedy. 

Modern tragedy, born in the Renaissance, the product 
of the germinating conflict of medieval and humanistic 
ideas and models, has never altogether lost the marks of 
its heritage from both lines of ancestry. Elizabethan 
tragedy, in particular, reveals in every lineament, in its 
scenic presentation, its methods of acting, its themes, 
structure, characters, style, theory, and artistic impulses, 
the influences both of the long centuries of medieval 
drama and also of the inspiration of the classics and the 
freer opportunity for individual effort which resulted 
from humanism. At the beginning we must attempt to 
separate and define these dominant influences. 

The contribution from the Middle Ages came largely 
from the religious drama. The folk games and plays and 
the performances of entertainers of various sorts contrib- 
uted to the development of the drama principally on the 
side of comedy, and only incidentally to tragedy. Nor 
need the early centuries of the religious drama detain us. 



MEDIEVAL AND CLASSICAL INFLUENCES 23 

Its origin in the church service, its early liturgical forms, 
its growth and service in the hands of the church, and its 
gradual secularization are of importance for us only as 
leading to its culmination in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries ; in England notably in the great cycles of ver- 
nacular plays performed by the guilds. It should be 
remembered, however, that the miracle plays never felt 
the least influence from the drama of the Greeks and 
Romans. Knowledge of the classic drama was long 
confined mainly to the plays of Terence, and suggested 
even to the most learned no idea of relationship to the 
familiar miracle plays ; and, on the other hand, the me- 
dieval stage gave no clue to a conception of the classical 
theatre. As late as Erasmus the curious notion siu^ved 
that the classic plays were read by the author or a " reci- 
tator " from a pulpit above, while below the actors illus- 
trated his lines by pantomime. Almost to the middle of 
the fifteenth century the miracle plays comprised all that 
was known of stage presentation in connection with 
serious drama. They were still performed through the 
sixteenth century; the boy Shakespeare may have been 
a spectator at a performance by the guilds; his father 
and grandfather and remoter forebears had seen them 
or perchance taken part in them. It was this abundant 
dramatic practice and ancient dramatic tradition that 
gave to Elizabethan England its fondness for play-acting, 
its recourse to the theatre for both amusement and edifi- 
cation, and the acceptance of the drama as an important 
factor in its daily life. 



24 TRAGEDY 

A glance at some of the most notable differences of the 
miracles from classical plays reveals traits that remained 
potent in later drama. The miracles took their material 
from the Bible or from some saint's life, and their pur- 
pose was to make this material significant and impressive. 
They were, in fact, essentially translations of prose nar- 
ratives into dramatic dialogue. Renaissance drama 
sought different material, but it found classical authority 
for basing tragedies on history, and so gave support to 
the medieval method of translation. In the Elizabethan 
period, dramatists rarely attempted the invention of their 
plots, but adopted and adhered to narrative sources. 
While they never suffered from the narrow conventional- 
ity imposed upon the authors of the miracles by the 
authority of the holy writ, yet something of the medieval 
subjection to sources was long manifest both in form and 
content. It is necessary to view the dramas of Shake- 
speare and all his predecessors as translations into dra- 
matic toTjn of stories already told in verse or prose. 

Because of their close adherence to sources and their 
distinctly expository purpose, the medieval dramatists 
made little or no distinction between what was suited for 
the stage and what was not. Their duty was primarily to 
present the narrative; and, though individual initiative 
might add something interesting or amusing, nothing in 
the Bible seemed unsuitable to presentation on the stage, 
and nothing that would aid its meaning seemed unsuitable 
for a drama. There was no thought of restricting a play 
to the presentation of one crisis or a single action, and 



MIRACLE PLAYS 25 

there was consequently no possibility of an approach to 
anything like the structure of classical tragedy. The 
dramatist might take advantage of the dramatic value 
of a given situation like the sacrifice of Isaac, or he might 
make a series of plays lead up to the great events of the 
redemption, but he was blind to any opportunity to 
abstract from the narrative the events that dealt with an 
emotional crisis and to focus them upon that as the centre 
of a dramatic structure. There was no notion whatever 
of the difference between a narrative fable and a dramatic 
fable. Dramatic unity and values in a miracle play, on 
the tragic side at least, were usually the direct results 
of the narrative ; unity on a larger scale in the cycle was 
the unity of history or of exposition, not of the drama. 
Such was the form which the Elizabethan drama in- 
herited, and to the end the form of Elizabethan tragedy 
continued a development from medieval tradition and 
practice, not only in its failure to adopt the unities, the 
I chorus, and other peculiarities of classical structure, but, 
'imore essentially, in its continued inability to restrict the 
story provided by a narrative source to the limits of a 
dramatic fable. Its final attainment of an organic struc- 
ture, though promoted in part by the regularizing influ- 
ence of classical theory and example, was in the main 
conditioned by the absence of dramaturgical restrictions, 
permitting an epic variety of events, the lack of which 
Aristotle had lamented in Greek tragedy, and by the 
consequent opportunity for a free and characteristic 
development. 



26 TRAGEDY 

From the medieval drama the Elizabethans inherited 
not only dramatic form, but an entire method of stage 
presentation different from the classical. The typical 
medieval stage, whether in the form of the procession 
of pageants or the inclosed place with the stations for 
the various actors, had, indeed, given way to something 
much more like the modern platform, even before the 
production of "Gorboduc"; but in most particulars, in 
the importance placed upon costume, the historical 
anachronisms, the crudity but frequency of spectacle, 
and especially in the entire liberty as to what should be 
presented, medieval ideas still prevailed. In the miracle 
plays, heaven, hell, God, the devil, Noah's flood, the fall 
of Lucifer, and the Maries at the cross were all acted. 
The Elizabethan theatre showed scarcely less temerity. 

Another far-reaching inheritance from the miracle 
plays was derived from their treatment of tragic themes 
and situations and from their pervading seriousness of 
purpose. Their purpose was ethical and religious edifi- 
cation; their theme the tragedy of sin; their situations 
were derived from the stories of Cain, Lucifer, Judas, 
John the Baptist, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the 
Crucifixion. If no formal tragedy resulted, and if in 
inculcating the triumph of righteousness the stories of 
the worthies and the martyrdoms of the saints took 
rather the cast of tragicomedy, it was nevertheless of 
great significance for later tragedy that, generations 
before Seneca became known with his bloody stories and 
sententious philosophy, the drama had been the vehicle 



MIRACLE PLAYS 27 

for ethical instruction and for the presentation of the 
most terrible and pitiful events. The miracle plays had 
long familiarized men with tragic action, tragic concep- 
tions in the drama, and tragic power in the treatment of 
situation. 

The tragic was often mingled with the comic. The 
dramatists mixed edification with amusement. The re- 
straints of the sacred narrative were thrown aside for a 
moment, and in Herod, or Noah's wife, or the shepherds 
awaiting the announcement of the birth of the Messiah, 
opportunities were taken for the introduction of realistic 
portraiture of contemporary life. Horse-play and buf- 
foonery or racy comedy often contrasted incongruously 
with events of momentous importance. This mixture of 
the comic and tragic survived in the popular drama 
despite the opposition of the humanists. It was indeed 
characteristic of medieval and Elizabethan manners and 
taste, and marks another important departure from 
classical precedent. We to-day are perhaps as near to the 
Athenians as to the Elizabethans in this respect. At all 
events, for the appreciation of Elizabethan tragedy, we 
sometimes need to reassert a childish and uncultivated 
disregard for the rapid changes of emotional tone, a liking 
for tears and laughter close together; or, perhaps there 
is ground for saying, we need to recognize the validity of 
the medieval taste for a comic contrast and relief in 
tragedy, and to accept in art the incongruities and gro- 
tesqueness of actual life. 

To the moralities, the second important species of 



28 TRAGEDY 

drama in the later Middle Ages, the debt of English 
tragedy is more explicit than to the miracles, but not 
more essential. It is not more essential, because the 
moralities were in a way the successors and the substi- 
tutes for the miracles and contributed largely to the same 
effects. They were devoted to a serious purpose and pre- 
sented tragic situations with a free admixture of comedy, 
and they continued many of the older traditions of stage 
performance and undramatic form. They differed from 
the miracles chiefly in that, like so much of medieval 
literature, they offered not a direct but a symbolic pre- 
sentation of life. Instead of the Bible narrative, they 
presented the strife of vices and virtues ; instead of real 
persons, personified abstractions. This change from 
individual characters to abstract qualities has usually 
been regarded as a retrogression by modern students, 
who deem the study of the motives of individual men and 
women as essential to the drama. But we have lately 
been reminded that on the stage it makes little difference 
whether an actor is called William or Everyman ; and the 
attempt at the symbolization of life offered an opportu- 
nity for freedom of invention and freshness of emotional 
effect that in the miracles had been smothered by the 
stereotyped repetition of the Bible narrative. The temp- 
tation and suffering of the good, the temporary triumph 
of the evil, and the punishment that overtakes even the 
mighty were themes which the miracle had confused with 
many others. The morality gave them dramatic isolation 
and emphasis. 



THE MORALITIES 29 

Moreover, in substituting for a translation of the 
Bible narrative the symbolization of life as a conflict 
between folly and wisdom, or the vices and virtues, or the 
body and the soul, the moralities gave importance to one 
of the most essential elements in tragedy, that of moral 
strife. The world is a battlefield, the soul is beleaguered, 
the play is a conflict; and with this element of conflict 
there arises the opportunity for dramatic structure. If 
the story is of strife, there is likely to be a moment when 
the victory hangs in the balance ; a reversal of fortune is 
implied; there is a chance for a rise and fall, a definite 
beginning, middle, and end. The moral conflict, more- 
ovei;, encourages a study of human motive, of cause and 
effect in human action. In some of these plays, as " The 
Pride of Life," "Everyman," "The Nice Wanton," the 
consequences of evil are clearly traced, and the action is 
representative not only of the conflict of good and evil in 
the universe, but of the battle of will in the individual. 
Evidently such plays are near relations of tragedy. They 
at least made plain to their successors the importance of 
the conflict of good and evil as a dramatic theme. Their 
text, the wages of sin are death, has continued to be an 
essential part of the conception of tragedy. 

The moralities, however, on the whole, made little 
advance, either in escape from conventionality, or in 
creation of structure, or in dramatic expression of the 
conflicts of will. They clung in the main to the domi- 
nant and already conventionalized allegory of the Middle 
Ages, the presentation of life as a conflict of body and 



-i 



30 TRAGEDY 

soul, although they made interesting excursions into the 
fields of pedagogy and religious controversy. This alle- 
gory they treated with intense didacticism, sacrificing 
all dramatic interest to enforce the lesson, though in 
their later days the sermons were very generously mixed 
with farce. Their importance and explicit contribution 
to English tragedy arose from their historical position 
just at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the 
sixteenth century. They then served as a transition 
species, conforming, by a reduction in length and in the 
number of actors, to the conditions of performance 
which marked the change from the medieval stage to the 
Elizabethan theatre; amalgamating under humanistic 
influence now with this type of play, now with that ; and 
imposing for a time their distinctive form and methods 
on the emerging types of comedy and tragedy. Some of 
the earliest tragedies, as we shall see, were direct devel- 
opments from the moralities, and the influence of the 
peculiarities of the morality was for a while definite and 
considerable. But it soon disappeared under the de- 
mands of a new theatre and the innovations of a new art. 
The inheritance of tragedy from the Middle Ages 
includes an important legacy from literature entirely 
apart from the drama. In the separation of the medieval 
world from the classic, the terms tragedy and comedy 
ceased to be connected with scenic presentation, and 
were extended to cover all forms of narrative, whether 
in dialogue or not. The distinction between the two, 
though varying somewhat in the different lexicographers 



MEDIEVAL THEORY 31 

and encyclopedists, gradually arrived at an agreement 
which continued to affect ideas throughout the Renais- 
sance. There was some insistence on the restrictions 
that tragedy dealt with history, and comedy with fiction ; 
tragedy with exiles, murders, important and horrible 
deeds, and comedy with more domestic themes or with 
love and seduction. There was more general agreement 
that tragedy dealt with persons of rank and importance, 
kings or great leaders, and comedy with persons of low 
or middle rank, and that tragedy required a more ele- 
vated and ornamented style than comedy. The most 
important difference, however, was held to lie in the 
distinction that comedy begins unhappily and proceeds 
to a happy conclusion, while tragedy begins prosperously 
and ends miserably and terribly. Thus Dante's poem 
was a Divine Comedy, and Chaucer in the Monk's Pro- 
logue summed up the accepted opinion of the scholarship 
of his day. 

"Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie. 
As olde bokes maken us memorie. 
Of him that stood in greet prosperitee 
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree 
♦Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly." 

These criteria for tragedy were fixed in the conscious- 
ness of the sixteenth century; and, though gradually 
correlated and amalgamated with criticism based on the 
newly found "Poetics," they continued to influence the 
theory and practice of the drama. Fitting these defini- 
tions and greatly increasing their importance and vogue. 



32 TRAGEDY 

collections of tragedies attained wide popularity during 
the fourteenth fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Boccac- ' 
cio's " De Casibus lUustrium Virorum et Feminarum," 
Chaucer's "Monk's Tale," and Lydgate's "Falls of 
Princes " are examples, and, far the most influential on 
English tragedy, "The Mirror for Magistrates." This 
collection, first printed in 1559 and later frequently re- 
edited and enlarged, suggested many themes for the 
historical drama. Elizabethan playwrights seeking for 
tragic stories turned naturally to this most famous col- 
lection of "tragedies" in the medieval sense. Conse- 
quently, the very idea of tragedy continued to carry the 
connotation of a sudden reversal of fortune, the fall 
of princes. Tragedy, indeed, has always remained very 
largely devoted to themes " de casibus illustrium virorum 
et feminarum." 

Turning now from the influence of medievalism to that 
of humanism, we may remember that in the drama even 
more than elsewhere humanism denotes a revolution in 
the spirit of the age, an emancipation of the individual 
mind from the fetters that had bound intellect and im- 
agination through the Middle Ages But we must deal 
first with one of the factors in accomplishing this emanci- 
pation, the reawakened knowledge of classical literature. 
There was some slight acquaintance with the Attic drama 
from the time that Greek was first taught at Oxford ; the 
doughty Roger Ascham learned from his master Sir John 
Cheke to prefer Euripides to Seneca; and at the time 
when the study of Sophocles and Euripides was occupying 



SENECA 33 

the Italian dramatists, there must have been some similar 
response in England. Specific instances of this, however, 
are few and uncertain. The Greek dramatists seem to 
have exercised no appreciable direct influence on English 
tragedy of the sixteenth century; nor can their influence 
at any time during the seventeenth be said to have been 
considerable. For England, even more exclusively than 
for the Continent, the classical influence on the origin 
and early development of tragedy was confined to the 
ten plays which Renaissance scholarship attributed to 
the philosopher Seneca. 

Seneca's plays, probably not intended for stage pre- 
sentation, were literary exercises following the models 
of Greek tragedy and more especially of Euripides. By 
the humanist, after he had acquired some ' slight know- 
ledge of the classical theatre, they were naturally accepted 
as plays actually performed, and their artificial and 
elaborate diction, which is their most conscious depar- 
ture from Attic standards, was eagerly appraised as a 
merit. Their themes, with the exception of that of the 
pseudo-Senecan " Octavia," are borrowed from Greek 
mythology, with a strong preference for the most sensa- 
itional and bloody stories of adultery, incest, the murder 
of parents by their children or of children by their par- 
ents. Whatever the revolting and bloody details, crime 
and its retribution make up the burden of each story. 
The plays present only the last phase of an action, and 
consequently open with lengthy exposition of preceding 
events. Much happens behind the scenes, little on the 



34 TRAGEDY 

stage; there are many narrative and lyrical scenes, com- 
paratively few dramatic. In comparison with the Athe- 
nian tragedies, they seem like prolonged rhetorical discus- 
sions of the familiar legends. Their structure involves a 
i division into five acts, which had probably been earlier 
adopted in Latin tragedy and is noted in the *'Ars Po- 
etica," and the exclusion of the chorus from any partici- 
pation in the action. It appears usually after each of the 
first four acts and indulges in philosophical reflections, 
(^ hymns in praise of some deity, or lamentations. In each 
play a chief person or hero can be distinguished in conflict 
■y with one or more chief opponents ; and each of the lead- 
ing persons is accompanied by an adviser or confidant, 
/ usually a faithful friend for a hero and a nurse for the 
/ heroine. In addition to mortals, supernatural visitants, 
J furies, gods, and especially ghosts, have a prominence 
that stirred Elizabethans to imitation. Though the pre- 
sentation of character is not humanly vital, the long 
speeches and soliloquies display an elaborate analysis 
\ of moods of passion, with an absence of Athenian religion, 
i a pagan cosmopolitanism, and an almost modern intro- 
spection. The style and philosophy were the chief recom- 
mendation of the plays to the Renaissance taste. Arti- 
, ficial, with constant use of antithesis, stichomythia, and 
j hyperbole, oratorical, sonorous, bombastic, and thickly 
I sprinkled with aphorisms and sentiments, the style seemed 
to the humanists to reach the height of tragic elevation 
I and philosophic sententiousness. 
* The reasons for the almost exclusive adoption of 



/ 



SENECA 35 

Seneca as a model seem to have been not only the 
comparative ignorance of Greek, but also the preference 
of Renaissance taste for the qualities just enumerated. 
Moreover, these lifeless and undramatic mixtures of rhe- 
torical verbiage, melodramatic situations, and endless de- 
clamations had the advantage of being easy to imitate. 
In their encouragement to imitation and their absorption 
of interest away from the models of Greek tragedy, there 
was a danger of humanistic endeavor resulting in mere 
copying, a danger not altogether escaped in Italy and 
France, but happily averted in England. 

When, on the other hand, the characteristics of these 
unpromising models are considered in comparison with 
the conventionality of the miracles and moralities, they 
clearly offered much provocative of literary endeavor 
and the development of the genre of tragedy. Through 
jthem secular stories, real persons, and dramatic plots 
took the place of the allegories and the abstractions. 
While they encouraged the selection of such stories as 
resembled the sensational myths favored by Seneca, they 
opened the door to history, romance, and the whole world 
of classical fable. Though their particular structure 
proved in the end impossible on the English stage, they 
enforced the division into acts already familiarized in 
comedy, and suggested the possibility of a dramatic fable 
in distinction from the miracles' adherence to a narrative 
one. Again, their presentation of character brought new 
persons, new motives, and new methods, calling attention 
to drama not as an exposition of events or as an allegory 



36 TRAGEDY 

of life, but as a field for the study of human emotion. 

j Their brilliant if bombastic rhetoric aroused enthusiasm 

/for the drama as literature and poetry; and their reflec- 
tive and aphoristic style encouraged an effort to elevate 
tragedy above its too familiar converse with comedy into 
the realm of austere philosophy. These influences, how- 
ever, were general. Every particular of Seneca's plays 
had its sixteenth century imitators. 

The first signs of an intelligent interest in these plays 
appeared almost simultaneously at the very beginning 
of the fourteenth century in the commentary of the Eng- 
lish Dominican, Nicholas Treveth, and in the study of 
the circle gathered about Lovato di Lovati at Padua. 
One of jhis school, Albertino Mussato, about 1314, wrote 
his "Eccerinis" on the fate of the Paduan tyrant, Ezze- 
lino, of the preceding century. This first of the Latin 

.tragedies of modern times aroused the admiration of 
Wholars, and was followed by many other neo-Latin 
imitations of Seneca. These, while keeping to the Senecan 
(form, often went beyond the stories of classical mythology 
and chose their subjects from the Bible or from ancient 
or modern history. Meanwhile neo-Latin comedy had 
had a beginning and was largely stimulated by the dis- 
covery, in 1427, of twelve hitherto unknown comedies of 
Plautus. All these neo-Latin plays were read and not 
acted ; and the actual acting, either of the classical plays 

^ or their humanistic imitations, was not established until 
1 the close of the fifteenth century. 

The knowledge of the classical drama spread after a 



HUMANISTIC TRAGEDY 37 

time across the Alps, and Terentian comedy in particular 
exercised a wide influence upon the drama. Of especial 
interest in relation to tragedy is the new school of neo- 
Latin comedy which arose about 1530 in Holland and 
spread over Germany and into France. It applied Teren- 

Itian style and structure to many of the stories in the Old 
Testament and to the parable of the prodigal son. To its 
original purpose of substituting for Terentian immorality 
themes edifying for youth, it soon added a Protestant 
tone, and in Kirchmayer's "Pammachius" (1538) en- 
tered the field of violent religious controversy. As the 

I number of these plays rapidly increased, there resulted a 
secularization of treatment and the admission of Senecan 
as well as Terentian influence. The stories of Judith, 
Susannah, Goliath, and others gave opportunities for 

<. recourse to Senecan imitation ; and in the " Jephthes " 
and "Baptistes," which about 1540 George Buchanan 
wrote at Bordeaux for his students to act, we have the 
first tragedies north of the Alps written in distinctly 
classical form, — a form, it should be said, derived from 
his study and translation of Euripides as well as from 
Seneca. 

Seneca's preeminence as a model for tragedy, however, 
was in general not contested, but rather increased by the 
growing knowledge of Euripides and Sophocles. By the 
end of the fifteenth century there had been many transla- 
tions of his plays in Italy ; they were studied in the schools, 
and some had been given stage presentation. But the 
idea of a vernacular tragedy on the Senecan model was 



38 TRAGEDY 

not put into effect until Trissino's " Sophonisba," writ- 
ten in 15 15. This was followed by others, until by the 
time of " Gorboduc " Senecan tragedy in Italian was an 
established form, and Jodelle's "Cleopatre Captive" 
(1552) had marked the beginning of the Senecan genre 
in France. The Italian tragedy had also introduced some 
departures, in the choice of romantic material and in the 
Innovation of "tragicomedy," which supplied the Sene- 
can model with a happy ending. But all these writers of 
tragedy worked with a common purpose, to revive Sene- 
can drama in their own day, and their plays adapted 
their themes and methods to the Senecan model with the 
faithfulness of disciples. These Senecan imitations, it 
should be noted, were designed for special performances 
under academic or courtly auspices, and not for the 
popular theatre. 

In England during the first half of the sixteenth century 
there was a repetition of the inter-influence between the 
still flourishing forms of medieval drama and the new 
classical models which we have noted on the Continent. 
The early Renaissance in the reign of Henry VIII awak- 
ened an interest in Seneca ; and the fragment of an Eng- 
lish play introducing Lucrece has suggested to Mr. 
Chambers the possibility of an essay at Senecan tragedy 
thirty years before " Gorboduc." The main force of the 
humanistic influence seems, however, to have been in the 
direction of comedy. The drama was no longer confined 
to popular open-air presentations, but found a place at 
court, in the halls of noblemen, and especially at the 



ENGLISH HUMANISM 39 

schools and universities, where the comedies of Plautus 
and Terence and imitations both in Latin and EngHsh 
were frequently acted. The influence of the classical 
plays themselves and of the neo-Latin school and the 
controversial dramas of the Continent upon English 
moralities and interludes was extensive and distinct. 
This led to a multiplication and confusion of dramatic 
types out of which comedy emerged in such plays 
as "Gammer Gurton's Needle" and "Ralph Roister 
Doister." In Latin, but not in English, we can trace a 
similar movement toward tragedy. We hear of a " Dido " 
written by Ritwyse, master of St. Paul's, and performed 
by his pupils some time in the decade preceding 1532. 
" Absalon," written by Thomas Watson probably in the 
following decade, was highly praised by Roger Ascham, 
and, if it be identical with the play now in manuscript 
in the British Museum, is an example of biblical drama 
along Senecan lines. A non-extant " Jephthes " by Chris- 
topherson (1546), the " Archipropheta," with a romantic 
love episode and a clown, written byGrimald and acted at 
Oxford in 1547, and his " Christus Redivivus " published 
in 1543 as a "comoedia tragica," all belong to the same 
mixed species. A representative of the controversial 
drama appears in John Foxe's " Christus Triumphans " 
about 1550, which drew much from the famous "Pam- 
machius," already translated by Bale and acted at Ox- 
ford to the great scandal of Gardiner. Of plays in the 
vernacular we hear of a few called tragedies, but the 
term was used without any exactness, and no extant play 



40 TRAGEDY 

has any just claim to the title. Ten tragedies and come- 
dies are attributed by Bale to Ralph Radcliffe, a peda- 
gogue, who in 1538 opened a theatre in his schoolhouse 
and gave plays before the 'plebs.' Some of these were 
certainly in Latin, but some may have been in English, 
and the titles are interesting as emphasizing again the 
prevailing humanistic influences. Of the tragedies, two, 
" The Burning of Sodom " and " The Delivery of Susan- 
nah," are on biblical themes evidently chosen for the pur- 
pose of edification; the third, "The Condemnation of 
John Huss," suggests the controversial type. Of the 
comedies, four have biblical themes, while three, " Patient 
Griselda," "MeHboeus," and "Titus and Gisippus," 
indicate the growing search for secular and even romantic 
themes. In this confusion of many species of drama, 
created by a mixture of medieval and humanistic influ- 
ences, there is at least no clear evidence of any English 
tragedy on Senecan lines before " Gorboduc." Of the 
development of the moralities toward tragedy, of which 
signs are not lacking, we get the clearest examples in 
plays a little later, which will be treated in the next 
chapter. 

Special notice, however, must here be paid to one 
morality and the dramatic activity of its author. John 
Bale, born 1495, a converted Carmelite who became 
bishop under Edward VI and an exile during the reign 
of Mary, and who died not long after the accession of 
Elizabeth, was one of the most vigorous of Protest- 
ant controversialists and apparently the leader of what 



ENGLISH HUMANISM 41 

may be called the Protestant drama. His forty-six plays 
"in idiomate materno" seem to have been intended for 
presentation, and, while exhibiting classical influence, 
doubtless in the main followed medieval models. Of J^e 
five extant, written presumably about 1538, three, " God's 
Promises,'* " John the Baptist," and " The Temptation 
of our Lord," are miracle plays ; one, " The Three Laws," 
is a morality. The fifth, "King John," inspired in its 
satirical and Protestant elements by " Pammachius " and 
perhaps also by Lindsay's "Three Estates," is the first 
example of a morality showing an approach to the later 
historical drama. It is in form a controversial morality, 
divided into two long parts or acts, but it follows roughly 
a chronological outline, and among its abstractions pre- 
sents the king himself as the champion of Protestantism 
against the pope and Pandulph. Although the direct 
influence of the play on later drama cannot be traced, 
it is a notable advance, of which there were perhaps 
other examples, toward the treatment of English history 
and of individual persons rather than abstractions in the 
popular drama. 

The humanistic activities of the sixty years before 
" Gorboduc " thus resulted in a breaking away of alle- 
giance to medieval models and the introduction of new 
types, rather than in any direct contribution to the form 
or matter of tragedy. The vernacular play approaching 
nearest to the field of tragedy is still a controversial 
morality exhibiting all the traits of medieval drama, 
and in its innovations pointing not toward classical 



42 TRAGEDY 

models, but rather to a new extension of the moraHty 
toward the presentation of national history and real per- 
sons. During this time, however, the influence of Sen- 
eca's plays had been constantly extending and ha!d been 
augmented by that of the imitations in Latin, French, and 
Italian. The interest of Seneca in the universities seems 
to have increased during the reigns of Edward and Mary 
and to have supplanted in a measure that in Latin com- 
edy. In 1559 the appearance of the first English trans- 
lation, that of the " Troades " by Jasper Heywood, opened 
the way to a wider interest and to the possibility of domi- 
ciling the Senecan drama on the English stage. By 1561 
translations of four other plays had been published ; and, 
before the collected edition of 1581, all of the ten had 
appeared and attained a greater popularity with the read- 
ing public than they have ever since experienced. 

The first English tragedy was not a modification of 
current forms, but a direct imitation of Seneca. The pro- 
duction of " Gorboduc," however, only marked another 
stage in that conflict between medievalism and humanism 
which we have been tracing. In the next chapter we shall 
consider the conflict between Senecan imitations and 
popular tragedies that still kept to the morality form, 
a conflict that resulted in the discarding of both Sene- 
can and morality incumbrances and the attainment in 
Marlowe and his followers of a form of tragedy very 
different from either, though inheriting bountifully from 
both. 

One source of classical influence other than Seneca's 



ARISTOTLE 43 

plays and their imitations was of enough importance to 
require special mention, that of Aristotle's "Poetics." 
First printed in 1508, it reinforced the dogmas derived 
from the "Ars Poetica," and became the basis of a 
rapidly increasing amount of dramatic criticism. This 
criticism, mostly Italian, interpreted Aristotle by means 
of the Senecan tragedies and so reinforced their influence ; 
but it was also greatly modified by the medieval ideas of 
tragedy which we have already noticed. The resultant 
theory of tragedy, with special regard to its misinterpre- 
tations of Aristotle, may be briefly summarized. His 
dictum that tragedy is the imitation of a serious action 
'iwas interpreted to mean an action illustrious because the 
actors are persons of the highest rank, thus adopting the 
medieval restriction of tragedy to princes. There was 
less agreement in the restriction of tragedy to history 
rather than fiction ; and over the question of the propriety 
of a happy ending there was considerable debate. Tragi- 
comedies were written and defended, but critics in general 
recognized tragedy as restricted to an unhappy ending, 
which was universally interpreted to mean deaths. In 
regard to the function of tragedy there was great differ- 
ence of opinion over the meaning of KaOapa-is, the weight 
of opinion inclining to emphasize the ethical aim of 
tragedy, that is, the reward of virtue and punishment of 
vice and the inculcation of morality by means of frequent 
precepts. From Aristotle's discussion of character there 
was derived the curious idea of "decorum," so important 
in later theories of the drama, that every character should 



44 TRAGEDY 

represent a class and should always have the same char- 
acteristics, — the kings all acting after one prescribed 
fashion, the soldiers after another, the old men after an- 
other, and so on. From Aristotle's mention of the restric- 
tion of time to one revolution of the sun came the unities 
of time and place, confining the action to one city and 
twenty-four hours, which were soon made predominant 
over the third unity of action. These distinctions became 
fixed in Italian criticism and were given their first full 
expression in English in Sidney's "Apology for Poetry," 
written about 1580; but before that they were more or 
less comprehended by most English students of Seneca. 
Although even a scholar in 1561 would have been unable 
to define the unities or decorum, he would have had some 
confused notion of them. The scope and function of 
tragedy were by that time assuming in the general liter- 
ary consciousness a definition approved by both medieval 
and classical theory and later formulated by Puttenham: 
"Tragedy deals with doleful falls of unfortunate and 
afflicted princes, for the purpose of reminding men of the 
mutability of fortune and of God's just punishment of a 
vicious life." 

Such definition of medieval and classical influences as 
we have been attempting necessitates a somewhat unreal 
separation of the two forces. Evidently, in the mind of 
any playwright, the two combined in a confusion of im- 
pulses, of the sources of many of which he must have been 
unaware. Absolute restriction to the old tradition or to 
the new inspiration is hardly to be expected in any Eng- 



THE IDEA OF TRAGEDY 45 

lish dramatist attempting tragedy in the neighborhood 
of 1562. Such an author would have open for his choice 
a wealth of stories, classical, medieval, or ItaHan, as yet 
untouched by drama; and, though he might choose a 
story whose events paralleled some Senecan plot, he 
would be likely to adhere closely to his narrative source 
after the medieval fashion. Even if he strove loyally after 
the Senecan form, his knowledge would be hardly suffi- 
cient to prevent departures from strict classical standards. 
Seneca does not always clearly observe the unities or 
remove violent action from the stage, and his Elizabethan 
follower would naturally err on the side in accord with 
popular dramatic tradition. Of the chorus, reduced in 
importance by Seneca, he would find it difficult to make 
much use. On the other hand, the adapter of the morality 
structure to tragic purpose would perhaps fail to derive 
anything from Seneca except his bombast and sensation- 
alism. For whatever audience the dramatist was writing, 
he would have many spectators demanding the fun, 
horse-play, and crude horror of medieval tradition, while 
his own literary aspirations might lead him to prefer 
lofty declamation and aphoristic phrasing. But, whether 
his knowledge was large or small, he was likely to com- 
bine in his conception of tragedy, as did Puttenham, both 
the Christian idea of evil, thwarting good and meeting 
punishment, and the Senecan idea of a crime followed by 
retribution or revenge. And, whether he catered to popu- 
lar taste or to literary ambition, he must have contem- 
plated the presentation of a reversal of fortune, persons 



46 TRAGEDY 

of royal or distinguished rank, and a catastrophe involv- 
ing deaths. 

It is, after all, the main contribution of humanism that 
through the study of the classics there had come new 
impetus and authority for individual effort. Art was to 
be based on classic precedents, but it was forbidden by 
the spirit of the new age to remain after medieval fashion 
satisfied with repetitions and translations. For the drama- 
tist there were not only new models, but a circulation of 
ideas, free opportunity, and the incentive of fame. For 
him, too, there was a public long habituated to the drama 
and now well tutored in novelties and variations of the 
old forms, a public that no longer expected a conven- 
tionalized stage, but was possessed of what the apostle 
Paul deemed the chief characteristic of the classical 
spirit, the desire to hear some new thing. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The authorities on their respective subjects are: W. Creizenach, 
Geschichte des neuren Dramas, Halle, 1893-1903 (3 vols, and index, 
extending to 1570, have appeared) ; A. W. Ward, A History of English 
Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne, 1899, new and revised 
edition, 3 vols. ; E. K. Chambers, The Mediceval Stage, Oxford, 1903. 
These all cover the matter of the present chapter and contain bibli- 
ographies. Ward gives full bibliographical notes to editions and mono- 
graphs; Creizenach's index is substantially complete for all European 
plays ; Chambers's Appendix X contains references to editions and de- 
scriptions of all English plays up to Elizabeth's accession. Klein, 
Geschichte des Dramas, 13 vols., 1865-76, and Collier, History of Eng- 
lish Dramatic Poetry, new edition, 1879, are both somewhat out of 
date, though the latter contains much useful material. R. Proloss, 
Geschichte des neueren Dramas (1881-83), and K. Mantzius, The His- 
tory of Theatric Art, 3 vols. (1904), are slighter. The only rapid and 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 47 

readable survey of European drama is by Brander Matthews, The 
Development of the Drama (1906). For France, the authority for 
medieval drama is L. Petit de Julleville, Histoire du Theatre en France 
au Moyen Age, 1880-86, 4 vols. ; for Germany, R. Froning, Das Drama 
des Mittelalters, 1891 ; for Italy, A. Ancona, Origini del Teatro italiano, 
1891, 2d edition. J. J. Jusserand, Le Theatre en Angleterre (1881, 
2d ed.) ; J, A. Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English 
Drama (1884); G. Gregory Smith, The Transition Period (1900, in 
Periods of European Literature) ; Gayley, Plays of Our Forefathers 
(1907), are of value. Dealing more specifically with matters discussed 
in this chapter are the volumes of Cloetta and Spingarn cited in the 
last chapter, C. H. Herford's The Literary Relations of England and 
Germany in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, 1886, J. W. Cunliffe's 
T/ie Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, Manchester, 1893, 
and R. Fischer's Zur Kunstentwickelung der Englischen Tragodie 
von ihren ersten Anfangen his zu Shakespeare, 1893. The Elizabethan 
translations of Seneca have been reprinted by the Spenser Society 
(1887). Within the last few years three new translations have appeared: 
by Watson Bradshaw, in prose (1902) ; by Miss E. A. Harris, in verse, 
two tragedies 1899, the remaining eight 1904; by F. J. Miller, in 
verse, with introduction on Seneca's Influence on English Drama by 
J. M. Manly (Chicago, 1907). Text and discussions of plays are pre- 
sented by A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Oxford, 4th ed., 1904; 
A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England, 1898; J. M. 
Manly, Specimens of the Pre- Shakespearean Drama, 1897 (2 vols., 
the third to contain notes and discussion). Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. 
W. C. Hazlitt, 15 vols., 1874-76, also contains texts. The matter of 
this and subsequent chapters also receives treatment in the general 
histories of literature. J. J. Jusserand, Literary History of the English . 
People, 2 vols., 1895-, is especially valuable in its account of the drama. \ 
The new Cambridge History of English Literature (now in progress) 
will contain valuable monographs on the matter of this and subse- 
quent chapters. The Dictionary of National Biography is, of course, 
most valuable for individual writers. F. E. Schelling's Elizabethan 
Drama, 1558-1642, which appears as this volume is passing the press, 
is a general history of the drama of the period stated, with special 
reference to the development of dramatic species. It contains an ex- 
tremely useful Bibliographical Essay and " A List of Plays " written, 
acted, or published in England, 1558-1642. 



CHAPTER III 
THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAGEDY 




N this chapter the development of tragedy is 
to be traced from 1562, the year of the pro- 
duction of "Gorboduc," to about 1587, the 
beginning of Marlowe's career. Our know- 
edge of the drama during this period is scanty, and there 
are few extant tragedies or plays resembling tragedy. 
Before examining these plays with the detail which their 
historical position demands, it will be necessary first to 
glance at the theatrical conditions. Reference has been 
made to some of the changes that had been working a 
transformation from the conditions of the popular per- 
formance of the religious drama in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries. Through these, the drama had al- 
ready to a large extent passed from the control of the 
guilds to that of small companies of amateur or profes- 
sional actors ; from the open air into the halls of noblemen 
or of the schools ; from the large stage with its fixed sta- 
tions for the different actors or the procession of pageants, 
to the small and perhaps improvised platform. Long 
plays with hosts of actors had given place to short plays 
with few parts, or many parts divisible among few actors, 
and constructed with a clear distinction between *'on the 
j stage" and "off the stage." Performances indoors, no 



THEATRICAL CONDITIONS 49 

specially prepared stage, few actors, and short plays re- 
present the prevailing theatrical practice of the early 
sixteenth century. 

From 1562 on, however, theatrical conditions were 
various and shifting, and not always easily discernible by 
the modern student. While miracles were still performed 
after the old popular fashion, the traveling professional 
companies were growing in importance and tending to 
monopolize the acting of interludes. Amateur actors, 
however, at court, school, university, inns of court, or, 
indeed, among the Bottoms and mechanics of the vil- 
lages, still contended with the professional for the control 
and maintenance of the drama. So far as tragedy is con- 
cerned, it will be convenient to keep in mind at least four 
distinct kinds of performance. First, the Gentlemen of 
the Inns of Court, who throughout the Elizabethan period 
showed themselves liberal patrons of the drama, occa- 
sionally gave plays, usually in connection with special 
festivities. Second, there were performances at the 
schools and universities which continued to exert an - 
important dramatic influence, as they had for the preced- 
ing sixty years. Plays at the universities were generally 
in Latin, but there were English plays at both schools 
and universities, and companies from the Merchant 
Tailors and Westminster schools acted at court; these 
last performances falling properly in the third group. 
Third, companies of children were trained for perform- * 
ance at court; and these were in the course of time re- 
stricted to the choir boys of St. Paul's and of the Queen's 



50 TRAGEDY 

chapel. Fourth, the travehng professional companies, 
numerous at the beginning of the period, acted in the inn- 
yards of London, at court, in the halls of noblemen, on 
the village greens, in the guild halls, even in the churches 
of the towns, or wherever else they could obtain an op- 
portunity, until the most important of them found homes 
in the London theatres. On all four of these classes of 
actors the influence of the court was considerable, for it 
was the highest gratification of either amateur or profes- 
sional to be engaged in a court performance, and per- 
formances at court were subject to greater preparation 
than those in public. 

Such were the conditions governing the presentation 
of tragedies in this period, but in the course of its twenty- 
five years the professional companies constantly grew in 
importance and in the end practically monopolized the 
business of giving plays. Schools, universities, and com- 
panies of amateurs became of decreasing moment in the 
development of the drama, while the choir boys were 
permitted to act plays publicly in their own theatres and 
thus became formidable professional rivals of the men's 
companies. In 1572 the statute compelling the common 
players to obtain the license of some nobleman reduced 
the number of the adult companies, but strengthened 
those that survived, which now became known as Lord 
Leicester's men, Lord Howard's men, and so on. In 
London they were able with the assistance of the court 
to establish and maintain themselves despite the active 
and constant opposition of the city authorities. The 



KINDS OF PLAYERS 51 

Theatre, built outside the city proper in 1576, was soon 
followed by other playhouses, and in 1583 a company 
was hcensed under the Queen's personal patronage. 
Henceforth the history of the Elizabethan drama is in 
the main confined to four or five companies of men and 
one or two of children, acting regularly in their estab- 
lished theatres and occasionally in the provinces, or at 
court, or elsewhere. 

The character of a tragedy naturally varied with the 
circumstances of its presentation. A Latin play at one of 
the universities was much more dignified and scholarly 
^than the performance of a few traveling actors for the 
delectation of a provincial audience; and a play by the 
Gentlemen of the Inner Temple was given with an elab- 
orateness not to be expected in those by the choir boys, 
which were likely to be brief and to include a good deal 
of singing. The extant tragedies can consequently be 
best classified according to their methods of presentation. 
Before all audiences, it should be remembered, moralities 
of divers sorts were performed, but we are now concerned 
only with those that most closely approach tragedy. All 
the extant Latin plays were presented at the universities. 
Of English plays, "Gorboduc," "Tancred and Gis- 
munda," " Jocasta," and "The Misfortunes of Arthur" 
were acted by gentlemen of the Inner Temple or Gray's 
Inn, and are all Senecan tragedies. "Damon and Pi- 
thias " and " Appius and Virginia " were acted at court by 
children, and show little Senecan influence, but are med- 
leys of tragedy, comedy, and music. No performance by 



52 TRAGEDY 

an adult company of any extant tragedy is recorded, but 
" Horestes " and " Cambyses," both of which may have 
originally been intended for children, bear some evident 
marks of popular presentation, and both are mixtures of 
morality, farce, and tragedy. These plays, with the ex- 
ception of "The Misfortunes of Arthur," acted in 1588 
at the very end of the period, were all written and per- 
formed in the sixties. With the addition of " Promus and 
Cassandra" (1578), apparently not acted, they comprise 
all extant plays acted before 1586-87 which can be classed 
as tragedies or tragicomedies. Our knowledge of the 
professional drama may be supplemented from the titles 
of non-extant plays and from the Revels Accounts of 
performances at court ; but it should be observed that our 
information in regard to the development of popular tra- 
gedy is very meagre, especially for the important period 
after 1570, and that the group of Senecan plays, which 
we are to examine first, owed their existence to no pop- 
ular favor, but to amateur performances under special 
conditions. 

"Gorboduc," or "Ferrex and Porrex," printed sur- 
reptitiously in 1565 and with an authoritative text about 
1570, was written by Thomas Norton and Thomas 
Sackville, the author of "The Complaint of Bucking- 
ham " and " The Induction " in " The Mirror for Magis- 
trates," and afterwards Lord Buckhurst, Lord High 
Treasurer. It was performed before the Queen as a part 
of the elaborate Christmas entertainment of the Inner 
Temple in 1561-62. The plot is taken from a British 



GORBODUC 53 

legend that was introduced into literature by Geoffrey 
of Monmouth, and relates the division of the kingdom 
by Gorboduc between his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, 
the murder of the elder by the younger, the murder of 
the younger by his mother, the murder of both father and 
mother by their subjects, the slaughter of the people by 
the nobles, and the resulting civil wars. The story, evi- 
dently chosen because of its likeness to Seneca's "The- 
bais," is treated in Senecan manner, each of the first four 
acts being followed by a chorus of " Foure auncient and 
sage men of Brittaine." The murders are not enacted 
but are related by messengers, but the unities of time and 
place are violated, as Sir Philip Sidney noted with disap- 
proval. There is little characterization, much political 
moralizing, w^hich delighted Sidney, and an abundance 
of long declamations, about eight hundred lines, nearly 
half of the play, being comprised in ten speeches. The 
play is written in blank verse, already used in Surrey's 
translation from the ^Eneid, and perhaps adopted in 
imitation of the unrhymed verse of the Italian tragedies. 
After the Italian fashion, each act is preceded by a dumb 
show, symbolizing the following action, and these dumb 
shows seem to have been utilized to provide the spectacle 
that was entirely wanting in the play proper. Supernat- 
ural visitants appear in the three furies before act iv ; and 
before the last act the dumb show consists of a battle- 
scene, similar to those which later became the invariable 
accompaniments of the chronicle history play: "there 
came forth upon the stage a company of hargabusiers and 



54 TRAGEDY 

of armed men all in order of battaile," who discharged 
their pieces and marched three times about the stage. 

In spite of the close adherence to the Senecan model, 
there is little direct borrowing from Seneca, and medieval 
elements are not lacking. The debates between the good 
and bad counselors are very like those of the moralities, 
and the structure is essentially that of a chronicle of a 
whole story rather than that of a classical tragedy. The 
first two acts are occupied by the interminable debates, 
and the last three by the catastrophe, or rather the suc- 
cession of catastrophes, though the final scene of the fifth 
act is a sort of epilogue after Senecan fashion. The play 
has little literary value, though Marcella's recital is not 
without power and the disquisitions on discord and dis- 
loyalty in the state have the merit of earnestness ; but it is 
clearly the beginning of a new species. It abandons cur- 
rent dramatic forms, and endeavors to depict the fall of 
English princes in accordance with the models of classi- 
cal tragedy. 

"Jocasta," by Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh, acted 
1566 by the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn, demands little 
attention. It is a translation in blank verse of Lodovico 
Dolce's " Giocasta," itself an adaptation of the " Phoenis- 
sse" of Euripides. It thus furnishes additional evidence 
of the influence of Italian tragedy on English. The chorus 
numbers four, as in " Gorboduc," and the dumb shows, 
apparently of Gascoigne's invention, are notably elabo- 
rate and spectacular.^ 

^ Before the first act, "there came in upon the stage a king with an 



OTHER SENECAN PLAYS 55 

"Tancred and Gismunda," acted before the queen 
at the Inner Temple in 1568, under the title *'Gismond 
of Salerne," was written in rhymed quatrains by five 
gentlemen of the Temple, and afterwards revised and 
put into blank verse by the author of the fifth act, Robert 
Wilmot, and first published in 1591.^ In both versions 
Cupid appears before the first and third acts as the direc- 
tor of the action, and Magaera comes on before the fourth 
act to superintend the revenge and murder. The play is 
based on Painter's version of Boccaccio's novella, which 
is followed closely, but the base-born lover becomes 
a count according to the prevailing theory of tragedy. 
The story itself has an obvious dramatic power and a 
certain dramatic structure which it imposes on the play. 

Imperiall Crowne upon his head , . . sitting in a chariot very richely 
furnished, drawne in by foure kinges in their dublettes and hosen, with 
crownes upon their heades, representing unto us ambition," etc. And 
before the fifth act there is a similar exhibition of a woman in a chariot 
driving kings and slaves. These shows may have suggested to Mar- 
lowe the famous business of Tamburlaine and his chariot. The show 
before act ii introduces the paraphernalia of coflfins and a grave, after- 
wards so frequent in popular tragedy. 

^ The earlier version also survives in MS. and has been published 
by Professor Brandl in his Quellen des WelUichen Dramas. The revised 
version is the result of elaborate care and reflects more highly developed 
dramatic conditions than existed in the sixties, but in some respects it 
may be closer to the original performance than is the manuscript. The 
songs of the chorus, now four maids of Gismunda's instead of four 
gentlemen of Salerne, and the dumb shows must have had some equiv- 
alents in the presentation before the Queen, though both are wanting 
in the earlier version. The dumb shows are noteworthy because, unlike 
those in Gorboduc and Jocasta, they are not allegorical, but represent 
important actions described or referred to in the text. 



56 TRAGEDY 

Gismunda*s passion for the Count Palurin runs counter 
to her father's wishes; at the end of the third act love is 
triumphant, but in the fourth is defeated, and the grue- 
some catastrophe follows, Tancred and Gismunda dying 
y on the stage. This is the earliest extant English play 
based on an Italian novella, and the first tragedy to adopt 
a romantic love story and to make the passion of love its 
central motive; and the authors accomplished their ex- 
periment with evident enthusiasm and some gracefulness 
and force of diction. They were, however, very conscious 
of their models. Seneca's "Thyestes," and "Phaedra," 
itself presenting a story of passionate love, were perhaps 
their chief inspirations; but Buchanan's *' Jephthes" and 
Beza's "Abraham," translated into English in 1577, are 
mentioned in Wilmot's dedication, and, together with 
other plays, supplied precedents for the treatment of the 
favorite tragic theme, the sacrifice of a child by a father. 
Moreover, Italian tragedies had, since Giraldi's "Or- 
becche," been turning to romantic fiction for their subjects 
instead of to history and mythology ; and some of these, 
"Orbecche" itself, and, as Professor Creizenach notes,* 
Dolce's " Dido, " doubtless influenced the young templars. 
There had, indeed, already been Italian tragedies based 
on Boccaccio's novella, and one by Frederigo Asinari 
(1576) had added an (Edipean horror by making Tan- 
cred put out his eyes before killing himself, an augmen- 
tation adopted by Wilmot in his revision. The play was 
thus not only thoroughly Senecan, but the result of a 
^ Geschichte des neueren Dramas, ii, 471. 



OTHER SENECAN PLAYS 57 

tangle of derivative Senecan influences. The authors 
were probably unconscious of the incongruity so obvious 
to us between the classical form and the romantic mate- 
rial. They were interested in their story and were eager 
to give it all the advantages that erudition could discover ; 
their intentions were doubtless perfectly reflected in the 
praise which William Webbe gave them for a play that 
"all men generally desired, as a work, either in stateliness 
of show, depth of conceit, or true ornaments of poetical 
art, inferior to none of the best in that kind : no, were the 
Roman Seneca the censurer." 

*'The Misfortunes of Arthur," by Thomas Hughes, 
was acted and published in 1588. The story from *' The 
Morte D'Arthur" was suggested by its likeness to Sene- 
can plots ; and the play was an ambitious attempt to use 
British legend as Seneca had treated classical myth. The 
strife between father and son, with its accompaniments 
of adultery and incest, is viewed as constituting a Nemesis 
for the crimes of Arthur's father, Pendragon; and the 
ghost of the wronged Gorlois appears in the first scene 
to promise revenge, and in the final scene to triumph 
over its fulfillment. The author knew his models by heart, 
borrowed much, availed himself of all the particulars of 
the Senecan technic, and imitated everywhere with a good 
deal of spirit and success. The play has dramatic and 
poetic merits beyond its predecessors, but its late date 
makes it of small importance in our effort to trace the 
beginnings of English tragedy. Acted twenty-six years 
after "Gorboduc," it testifies less to the progress of dra- 



58 TRAGEDY 

matic art than to the conventionalizing effect of Senecan 
models. Though perhaps the most successful of English 
imitations of Seneca, it marks the failure of amateur 
actors and courtly audiences to revive the classical drama 
on the English stage. On the occasion of its performance 
before the Queen at Greenwich, its actors and authors 
may very likely have thought it full of significance for 
the future of the drama ; but "Tamburlaine" had already 
been acted, and poetry had taken up its abode in the 
despised public theatres. The chief interest for us in 
*'The Misfortunes of Arthur" is that it furnishes further 
illustration of the use of English history and of stories of 
revenge. 

To understand the full importance of the attempt to 
domicile Seneca in England, we must turn to the uni- 
versities. Two English plays, which would be of inter- 
est, have not been preserved, "Ezechias," a tragedy 
by Udall, acted in 1564 at Cambridge, and "Palamon 
and Arcyte" by Edwards, the author of "Damon and 
Pithias," acted 1566. These are the only English plays 
at all tragical that are recorded ; but the practice of giv- 
ing Latin plays continued and grew in popularity.^ We 
hear of "Dido" and an "Ajax Flagellifer," apparently 
a translation of Sophocles, both in 1564, and a " Progne " 

^ For a list of Latin plays acted at the universities, see Fleay, Biogra- 
phical Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. ii, 347-366. This list must 
be corrected in many particulars by an article, "Die Lateinischen Uni- 
versitats-Dramen in der Zeit der Konigin Elisabeth," by George B. 
Churchill and Wolfgang Keller, Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare- 
GeseUschaft, xxxiv, 220-323. 



G 



UNIVERSITY LATIN TRAGEDIES 59 

in 1566. The extant Latin tragedies are of a later date. 
Gager's " Meleager," " CEdipus," and " Dido," all acted in 
the early eighties, are modeled strictly on Seneca, the first 
two showing direct borrowings. 'In the fragment which 
we possess of the third, the ghost of Sichseus appears 
to warn Dido, and is followed by the storm, represented, 
we learn, by sugar for snow, sweetmeats for hail, and 
rose-water for rain. Gager's " Ulysses Redux," acted in 
1591, a little beyond the limits of our period, presents a 
somewhat freer treatment of the Senecan form, the num- 
ber of characters and of scenes being larger than in the 
earlier plays. Of uncertain date are a "Herodes," which 
takes the form of a revenge play introduced by the ghost 
of Mariemma, and " Solymannidse " and " Tonumbeius," 
which apply Senecan methods to Eastern instead of to 
classical atrocities. " Roxana " (1632), acted before 1592, 
is a translation of "La Dalida" of Luigi Groto, and 
won some contemporary distinction and the praise of 
Dr. Johnson two centuries later. It is a revenge play 
with a ghost, combining Senecan gruesomeness with the 
motives of romantic comedy. 

More famous than any of these in its own day was 
" Richardus Tertius, " a tragedy in three parts, each part 
acted on a separate night in 1579 at St. John's, Cambridge, 
the work of Thomas Legge, Master of Caius and after- 
wards Vice-Chancellor of the university. Legge seems to 
have felt the incongruity between the material of the 
chronicles, which he followed closely, and a strict Senecan 
form, and to have striven to overcome this by the mechan- 



60 TRAGEDY 

ical expedient of prolonging the action over three plays. 
But the problem of presenting on the stage the events 
of a whole reign could not be solved in the terms of 
the Senecan formula. Legge copied the Senecan rhetoric, 
interpreted historical events and persons under the guid- 
ance of the formula, and retained much of its technic, 
the narration of deaths instead of their presentation, 
counsel scenes between hero and advisers, frequent use 
of the nuntius, and a vestige of a chorus. But the play- 
departs as widely as popular dramas from the unities 
of time and place, contains many scenes with more than 
three speakers, is full of dramatic action, and presents 
processions, pageants, and battle scenes after the fashion 
of later chronicle plays in the public theatres. Its influ- 
ence on popular drama may well have been considerable ; 
though, on the other hand, its adherence to sources and 
its looseness of structure may have been reflections from 
the public stage. Whether the first chronicle play or not, 
it is the earliest extant play to indicate the result of the 
inevitable conflict between a narrow and stereotyped 
dramatic form and the wide range of material which the 
chronicles afforded.^ 

In these university Latin plays there is evident a 

^ Far more novel than any of the plays discussed in its departures 
from Senecan precedent, is Perfidus Hetruscus. So far as can be judged 
from the outHne {Jahrhuch, xxxiv, 250-252), it offers no semblance of 
Senecan structure. There is no chorus, but there are six ghosts, a vil- 
lain, two accomplices, — one a Capuchin, the other a Jesuit, — and an 
elaborate plot, as full of surprises as of poisonings. It seems to be a 
popular revenge play turned into Latin, and can hardly come within our 
period. 



POPULAR TRAGEDIES 61 

development similar to that traced in the English Sene- 
can drama. Biblical themes disappear; close imitations 
of Seneca on classical themes give way to freer treatment 
of romantic or historical material. Revenge and the 
ghost are ever prominent; and English history intro- 
duces a host of events, varied, incongruous, panoramic, 
and bursting the bounds of the traditional structure. 
Nash, Marlowe, and others of the later dramatists were 
university men, and saw some of these plays performed, 
and perhaps took part in them. Their scenic spectacle, 
choices of themes, handling of situation, and general 
effect must have had an appreciable influence upon the 
subsequent course of the drama. To the various influences 
which we have denominated humanistic, and especially 
to the derivative influences reinforcing that of Seneca, 
we must add this of the Latin plays at Oxford and 
Cambridge. Latin tragedies continued to be acted at 
the universities for many years, but their influence on 
the popular drama can have been potent only during its 
formative period. 

When we turn from these academic and amateur 
productions to the more popular performances,^ we have 

^ One play should be mentioned here as standing in some ways 
between the classical and popular plays. Promus and Cassandra, by 
George Whetstone, published 1578, cannot be placed in any of our four 
classes, for there is no evidence that it was ever acted. Like Tancred 
and Gismunda, it was based on an Itahan novella, also the source of 
Pleasure for Measure, and it follows Latin comedy rather than tragedy. 
In its di\asion into five acts, its frequent soliloquies, its attempted obser- 
vance of decorum (especially vaunted in the preface), and in its serious 
purpose and moral sentiments, the play shows a pedantic clinging to 



62 TRAGEDY 

to deal with a very different class of plays. The four to be 
considered were all written by men of scholarly training, 
and all deal with classical themes, but the Senecan in- 
fluence is slight and mainly discernible in the figurative 
and hyperbolic diction and the fondness for sententious 
maxims. None of the four are divided into acts; none 
have choruses or other characteristic marks of Senecan 
structure ; all present action to the exclusion of reflection, 
and all are in rhymed verse, the favorite metre, at least 
in the serious portions, being doggerel. All admit comic 
and farcical scenes, and three are in a large measure 
moralities. In the tragic portions all admit violence and 
murders of all kinds on the stage; there is a beheading, 
a hanging, and, in the case of " Cambyses," a flaying, 
accomplished, the stage direction reassures us, "with a 
false skin." 

"Damon and Pithias" (1571), by Richard Edwards, was 
acted by the Children of the Chapel at court in 1563-64, 
and, judging from the title-page, probably also in public. 
The prologue, which contains a discussion of ** decorum," 
explains that the term* 'tragi call comedy "is used because 

classicism. In the main, however, it belongs with Damon and Pithias 
and Appius and Virginia, and seems to have been intended for per- 
formance by children. It is a mixture of tragedy, comedy, farce, and 
songs; and this abundance of incongruous material seems to have led 
to its division into two plays, as Whetstone says, for the purpose of 
decorum. Here, as elsewhere in the period, the experiment of putting 
new material into old dramatic structures burst the bottles. Clowns, 
parasites, tyrants, prostitutes, hangmen, Egyptians, and girls in boys' 
clothing make up a pageant which is a sort of tragicomedy but which 
the learned author called by the more popular title, "a history." 



POPULAR TRAGEDIES 63 

the story is a matter '* mixed up with mirth and care." 
The serious portion of the play presents the tyrant Diony- 
sius as well as the two faithful friends, and shows evidence 
of a study of Seneca; but it is intermixed with comedy, 
where the influence of Plautus is noticeable, and indeed 
with scenes of broadest farce. Carisophus, the parasite, 
is hardly distinguishable from the vice of the moralities, 
and is not only clown and mischief-maker, but the vil- 
lain, whose infamy brings about the tragic entangle- 
ments. The play contains a number of songs, and this 
mixture of tragedy, farce, and musical comedy seems 
typical of the children's plays of this period. 

" Appius and Virginia" (S. R. 1567-68), by an unknown 
R. B., was also evidently acted by one of the children's 
companies, perhaps, as Mr. Fleay plausibly conjectures, 
by the boys of the Westminster school. It is much shorter 
than " Damon and Pithias," but, like that play, is styled 
a tragical comedy, is written in rhymed verse, mostly 
doggerel, and contains farcical scenes and many songs. 
The vice Haphazard is a clown and mischief-maker; 
and, in addition, a number of personified abstractions, 
Conscience, Justice, Comfort, Doctrina, etc., indicate the 
close relation of the play to the moralities. The main 
plot, however, is tragic and has no integral connection 
with the comic scenes. It begins with the domestic hap- 
piness of the family of Virginius, and proceeds promptly 
to the action. Virginia is beheaded, and the head is 
afterwards exhibited; Appius Claudius and Haphazard 
are executed out of the sight of the audience; and in 



64 TRAGEDY 

the closing scene the tomb of Virginia is shown upon the 
stage, Memory inscribes her renown, while Justice, Re- 
ward, Doctrine, and Fame apparently join in a song 
"around about the tomb in honor of her name." 

"Horestes" (1567) by John Pickering was probably 
the " Orestes " acted at court 1567-68. It also seems to 
have been performed by children, but was very likely 
given public presentation by various companies. The 
title runs significantly, "A New Interlude of Vice, con- 
teyninge the Historye of Horestes," etc. The vice, indeed, 
is hardly absent from the stage, and offers much that is 
new in his species. He is a clown, but apparently this 
is only a disguise, for he appears to Horestes as a mes- 
senger from the gods, urging him to revenge; later as 
Courage he is Horestes' faithful friend and supporter, 
then as Revenge he attends to the execution of Clytem- 
nestra, and finally he appears as a beggar thrust out of 
court, since Revenge could not agree with the Amity 
dwelling there, and takes the opportunity to read a long 
lecture to women. The diversity of elements confused in 
this personage is typical of the play. It is in a large 
measure a morality; Nature appears to Horestes to dis- 
suade him from including his mother in his vengeance. 
Fame appears as a judge and exempts him from guilt, 
and other abstractions are numerous and voluble. There 
are also a number of songs, Egisthus and Clytemnestra 
having just finished a love song when the messenger 
announces the avenger's approach. There are many 
scenes of sheer farce, where the humor lies wholly in 



POPULAR TRAGEDIES 65 

fisticuffs and beatings ; and the spectacular element sug- 
gests the later historical plays. Horestes is accompanied 
by an army which marches with drums about the stage 
and fights two pitched battles, one with the host of Egis- 
thus and the other for the possession of the city. " Make 
your lively battel and let it be long," says the stage direc- 
tion. Still further, the classical elements are curiously 
confused. Although there are a number of quotations from 
Ovid and frequent citations of other classical worthies, 
there is no mention of Seneca, though the plot of "a re- 
venge for a father" here makes its first appearance in the 
English drama, and the authors appear to have been en- 
tirely ignorant of the Greek tragedies. The ultimate source 
is the sixth book of Dictys Cretensis. The author follows 
closely one of the popular versions of the Troy legend, 
retains the anachronisms of the romantic version, and 
imposes on that the structure of the morality, the vice 
taking the place of the oracle of Apollo, and abstractions 
mingling with the knights and dukes of the Trojan war. 
The play is thus interesting as marking another step in 
the translation of the morality into the "history" type of 
tragedy. The closing scenes, in particular, illustrate the 
adherence to sources with morality embellishments. The 
play by no means ends with the murders. Horestes is 
approved by Fame, accused by Menelaus, who arrives, 
defended by Nestor, who throws down his glove as a 
gage, then reconciled to Menelaus, married to Hermione, 
crowned by Duty and Truth, and applauded and advised 
by Commons and Nobelles. 



66 TRAGEDY 

"Cambyses" (S. R. 1569-70) was written by Thomas 
Preston, afterwards Master of Trinity Hall, and acted 
some time in the sixties. Perhaps originally intended for 
a school performance, it was later evidently acted in 
public, and seems more suited than even "Appius and 
Virginia " or " Horestes " to a performance by an ordi- 
nary professional adult company. The title-page sets 
forth the plot with a terse emphasis of its various ele- 
ments: "A Lamentable Tragedie mixed full of pleasant 
mirth containing the Life of Cambises King of Persia 
from the beginning of his kingdome unto his Death, his 
one good deede of execution, after that, many wicked 
deedes and tyrannous murders committed by and through 
him, and last of all, his odious death by Gods Justice 
appointed." Like "Horestes," this is a combination of 
morality and history, and the chronicle or epical method 
is enforced by the fact that we have the whole story of 
"the life and death," as later titles ran, of a monarch. 
The chronicle structure is mixed full of pleasant mirth 
and pays a certain regard to climax. Cambyses begins by 
executing an unjust judge, and proceeds to murder the 
child of his minister, then his brother, then his bride, and 
^nally himself. The comic scenes have a link of connection 
with the tragic ones in Ambidexter, the vice and accom- 
plice of the villanous tyrant. Seneca is appealed to as an 
authority in the prologue, but there is little trace of his 
influence, unless it is found in the central figure of the 
wicked tyrant and his gory career, or in the highfalutin 
of Cambyses' vein. The extraordinary list of dramatis 



EMERGENCE OF TRAGEDY 67 

personae indicates sufficiently the hodge-podge of the 
action and the prominence of the morahty influence. The 
deaths are managed by Cruelty or Murder ; Commons Cry, 
Commons Complaint, Small Nobility, and Proof appeal 
against tyranny; the marriage feast is arranged by Pre- 
paration; the comic scenes are shared by Huf, Ruf, 
Snuf , Hob, and Lob ; Venus and Cupid manage the love 
affairs ; and Shame appears as a sort of tentative ghost : 

" From among the grisly ghosts I come, from tyrants' testy train." 

The fall of the Prince Cambyses, it should be added, is 
accidentally or providentially upon his own sword; and 
only the exit of Ambidexter and a few words from the 
three lords, who pronounce the accident a just reward 
from heaven and promise princely burial, are required to 
bring the play to a close. 

In these plays we may trace the gradual emergence of 
tragedy in the popular drama in response to a growing 
knowledge of its functions and methods. It appears still 
mixed with farce and morality, but it has themes like 
those of Seneca, bloody, revolting, and sensational, and 
its freedom in stage presentation permits an emphasis on 
crime and death even greater than in the Senecan imita- 
[tions. Notably, it introduces the stories of the downfall 
of a tyrant and the revenge of a son for a father. The 
structure has none of the Senecan characteristics, and 
consists merely in linking together, or rather in inter- 
rupting by extraneous comedy, a few scenes illustrating 
a story; but it is like that of the English Senecan plays 



68 TRAGEDY 

in the space it gives to catastrophe. In general the plays 
begin conventionally with the depiction of peaceful and 
prosperous circumstances, and proceed at once to the 
disasters and deaths, with very little attention to the 
events or motives that lead to these results. The element 
of conflict is as yet hardly translated out of the abstract 
terms of the morality into those of actual life. The con- 
flict of motives never leads to a dramatic crisis but keeps 
to the form of a medieval debate, as between Nature and 
Horestes, or, indeed, between the bad and good counsel- 
ors in "Gorboduc." Characterization likewise depends 
mostly on the form of arguing abstractions, though cer- 
tain types of importance later are already noticeable. 
The faithful friend and the aged counselor are ever at 
hand, and the part, if not the character, of the tragic hero 
is provided in Horestes and Virginius. The villain re- 
ceives considerable attention. The English dramatists 
were puzzled to follow the classical tragedies in placing 
the source of evil in Fate or the decrees of the gods ; and 
even when their stories provided them with persons suf- 
ficiently iniquitous to cause all the tragic trouble, they 
seem to have felt the need for a visible and special repre- 
sentative of the devil. Evil in "Gorboduc" may be said 
to arise from the counsels of the parasites as well as from 
the folly of the king and the envy of the princes. In 
" Tancred and Gismunda " it is due, after classical imita- 
tion, to the intervention of Cupid. In the popular plays 
the vice is borrowed from the moralities, and, in all 
except "Horestes," is made a mischief-maker, a source 



EMERGENCE OF TRAGEDY 69 

of evil, and the special representative of the devil. Ques- 
tions in regard to the origin of the vice and his relation- 
ship to the devil of the medieval drama have not been 
freed from doubt by recent investigation, but it seems 
clear that in the early tragedies he was given some of the 
work later accomplished by the stage-villain and his 
accomplices. The part that women play in these early 
tragedies should also be noticed. Women and love, as ^ 
Professor Creizenach has observed, receive far more 
attention in Renaissance tragedy than in Greek or Sen- 
ecan. "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Promus and 
Cassandra" deal with stories of romantic love; Virginia 
and the queen in " Cambyses " present noteworthy though 
slight examples of the idealization of women so important 
in later drama. The purpose of all these plays, Senecan -■ 
or popular, is superficially didactic, as is witnessed not 
only by the abundant moralizing in the Senecan imita- 
tions, but also in the popular plays by the emphasis in the 
closing scenes on the reward of virtue and the punish- 
ment of vice. In the last act of "Appius and Virginia" 
the lesson of the play is written on the tomb, and in 
" Horestes " the conduct of the hero is discussed by Nes- 
tor and Fame and finally rewarded by Hermione, Truth, 
and Duty. " Cambyses " is more in line with later tragedy 
in presenting the protagonist as a monster and in closing 
promptly after his punishment by death. 

The most certain accomplishment, however, in the 
development of the drama up to 1570 had been in the • 
widening of its range of material. The bible narrative 



70 TRAGEDY 

and moral allegory had been superseded by classical 
myth and history, and these in turn were being en- 
croached upon by the romantic fiction of the Italian 
novelle and by the chronicles of English history. Italian 
novelle were open to dramatists mainly through a series 
of collections of translations, of which " Painter's Palace 
of Pleasure" (1566) was the chief. The interest in Eng- 
lish history was stimulated and fed by " The Mirror for 
Magistrates" and the various editions of the chronicles; 
Grafton, Stowe, and the third edition of Fabyan appear- 
ing in the sixties, and Holinshed in 1577 ; while interest 
in the classics was maintained by numerous translations 
as well as by an increasing knowledge of Latin. Trans- 
lation, indeed, had brought the stories of the world to the 
English mart, and the dramatic industry was now eager 
in its demand for material. 

Of the continued development of popular tragedy after 
1570, and particularly of the sources drawn upon for 
dramatic material, we can get a few hints from the titles 
of non-extant plays. The incomplete Revels Accounts 
of performances at court preserve the names of over 
sixty plays acted between 1570 and 1585, and about 
thirty are derived from other sources. Of the court plays, 
none had biblical subjects ; a number were moralities, a 
few were drawn from old romances; but the majority 
were from classical or Italian sources. Many of these 
must have contained tragic incidents,^ though probably 

* Ariodante and Genevra (Orlando Furioso), Ajax and Ulysses, Aga- 
memnon and Ulysses, Ccesar and Pompey, Cloridon and Radimanta, 



NON-EXTANT PLAYS 71 

they were not much more classical in form than " Appius 
and Virginia *' or " Horestes." Only one title drawn from 
national history presents itself, "The King of Scots." 
The English chronicle play had evidently not yet made 
any stir at court; but many of the classical plays were 
drawn from Livy. Two other titles, "The Cruelty of a 
Stepmother" and "Murderous Michael" (Sussex's men, 
'78, '79), and a third of a play at Bristol in 1578, "What 
Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man," may possibly 
have had for sources accounts of contemporary murders, 
and thus have instituted the species of domestic tragedy. 
A few titles, suggestive of tragedy, with accompanying 
comments, have been preserved by Gosson, who praises: 
"The Jew," "representing the greediness of worldly 
chusers and bloody minds of usurers," apparently a 
forerunner of "The Merchant of Venice"; "Ptolemy," 
" describing the overthrow of seditious estates and rebel- 
lious commons"; "The Blacksmith's Daughter," "con- 
tayning the treachery of the Turkes, the honourable 
bountye of a noble mind, and the shining of virtue in 
distress " ; and his own play, " Catilin's Conspiracy," 
"showing the reward of traitors." 

Some further information concerning the emergence 
of popular tragedy can be derived from the criticisms of 

Dulce of Milan, Effigenia {Iphigenia) , Four Sons of Fabius, Mutius 
ScoBvola, Quintus Fabius, Perseus and Andromeda, Sarpedon, Scipio 
Africanus, Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes, Telemo, Twelve Labors of 
Hercules. Some titles suggesting medieval romance are: Knight of the 
Burning Bush, Red Knight, Paris and Vienna, Solitary Knight. 



72 TRAGEDY 

the period. Gosson in his "Plays Confuted" (1582), 
declares : — 

"For the poets drive it most commonly unto such points as 
may best show the majesty of their pen in tragical speeches, or 
set their hearers agog with discourses of love; or paint a few 
antics to fit their own humours with scoffs and taunts or wring in 
a show to furnish forth the stage when it is too bare; when the 
matter itself comes short of this, they follow the practice of the 
cobbler, and set their teeth to the leather to pull it out. . . . So," 
he adds, "was the history of Caesar and Pompey and the play 
of the Fabii at the theatre, both amplified where the drums 
might walk or the pen rufl9e." 

A similar criticism is made by Whetstone in his dedica- 
tion of "Promus and Cassandra" (1578): "The Eng- 
lishman in this qualitie, is most vaine, indiscreete, and 
out of order : he first groundes his work on impossibilities : 
then in three howlers ronnes he throwe the worlde: 
marryes, gets Children, makes Children men, men to 
conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth 
Gods from Heaven and fetcheth Divels from Hel.'* Sid- 
ney in the well-known passage on the contemporary 
drama in his "Apologie for Poetrie" (1595, but written 
about 1580) amplified these same criticisms, deploring 
the lack of "noble moralitie," the violation of the unities, 
and the admixture of farce in current tragedies, and 
especially animadverting on the histories and the " mon- 
grel Tragy-comedie." He asks scornfully : " And doe they 
not knowe, that a Tragedie is tied to the lawes of Poesie, 
and not of Historic ? not bound to follow the storie, but 
having liberty either to faine a quite new matter, or to 



PREPARATION FOR MARLOWE 73 

frame the history to the most tragicall conveniencie. 
Againe, many things may be told, which cannot be 
shewed, if they knewe the difference betwixt reporting 
and representing," — and he goes on to illustrate. Evi- 
dently the medieval methods were still potent rather than 
those of Sidney's models, Euripides, Seneca, and " Gop 
boduc"; and the tragedies in the theatres followed their 
sources without recognition of the difference between a 
narrative and a dramatic structure, and with an appeal 
to vulgar taste by means of hideous monsters, pitched 
fields, scurrility, or " some extreme shew of doltishness.*' 
From these critical comments we may infer that the pop- 
ular drama had before 1585 triumphed over the Senecan. 
The few extant tragedies before that date have shown 
little which was not paralleled in the contemporary drama 
of western Europe; but in the popularization of a pro- 
fessional drama that rejected Senecan technic but still 
delighted in the presentation of tragic fact we have the 
first clear differentiation of English tragedy from that of 
other nations. Unfortunately we have only this indirect 
evidence that such differentiation was well under way 
before Marlowe. 

On the basis of such evidence, however, we may draw 
a few inferences in regard to the course of popular tragedy 
from 1570 to 1585. We may infer that Senecan imitations 
in the hands of amateurs did not multiply, and were not 
readily accepted even as object lessons by writers for the 
public theatres, who, whatever inspiration they may have 
received from amateur or academic pla^, must have felt 



74 TRAGEDY 

the increasing force of the demand from the public for 
amusement and sensation. While undoubtedly many 
traces of Senecan influence continued, and while classical 
themes persisted, the prevalent type of drama became 
neither right comedy nor right tragedy but the so-called 
"history." Whether based on history or fiction, its main 
purpose was the presentation of a story, the more mar- 
velous the better; and, even if it ended in deaths, it was 
v/ likely to contain a mixture of farce, romantic love, stage 
spectacle, and, as time went on, a diminishing inculcation 
of morality. Throughout the period, popular tragedy 
probably remained commingled with other species of 
drama. As it forsook the morality, it found itself wedded 
with farce or spectacle; or, perhaps more extensively, 
with history and romantic comedy. What course the 
popular drama farthest removed from court or academic 
influence may have taken, we can only surmise, though 
the presentation of contemporary murders, which found 
favor even at court, must presumably have flourished 
with less cultivated audiences. And it is impossible to 
resist the conjecture that English history must have re- 
ceived crude presentation in the public theatres much 
earlier than we have any record of. 

We may also surmise that in the quarter of a century 
from "Cambyses" to " Tamburlaine " there must have 
been some considerable development in the power to 
depict tragic fact, in the traditions of tragic acting, and 
in the cultivation of the taste of both audiences and 
authors for the genuinely terrible, pathetic, and heroic. 



PREPARATION FOR MARLOWE 75 

but we must assume that tragedy still awaited the service 
of both literary and dramatic genius. The genius of 
Marlowe, however, had its way prepared by twenty-five 
years of extraordinary dramatic activity, during which 
the functions of comedy and tragedy had become known 
if not observed, comedy had attained a considerable 
development in Lyly and Peele, and tragedy had gained 
suflficient vigor to extend its themes, and to decide against 
a development imitative and scholarly, and in favor of 
one original and popular. )/ 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Most of the books in the list for the last chapter are useful in con- 
nection with the matter of this. Creizenach and Ward are the chief 
authorities; Collier, Symonds, and Jusserand deal with the period. 
Spingarn, Cunliffe, and Fischer are valuable for their special fields. 
Texts are to be found in Manly, Dodsley, Brandl, and discussions in 
the latter. For the stage history of the Elizabethan drama, the works 
of F. G. Fleay are very valuable, though marred by much unsupported 
conjecture: A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642, 
2 vols. (1891) ; A Chronicle History of the London Stage, 1559-1642 
(1890) ; A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shake- 
speare (1886). The first-named is the most reliable and useful of the 
three. Original documents and records are printed in part in Collier 
and Fleay; and in Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of tjie Life of Shake- 
speare (6th ed., 1886); Malone's Varioruvi ed. of Shakespeare, 1821; 
Cunningham's Extracts from the Annals of the Revels at Court, Shake- 
speare Society, 1842; Nichols's The Progresses and Public Processions 
of Queen Elizabeth, 3 vols., 1823; Aussere Geschichte der englischen 
Theatertruppen, 1559-1642, by Hermann Maas (Materialien zur 
Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas, 1907) ; Hazlitt's English Drama 
and Stage (1869) ; Chambers's Notes on the Revels Office (1906). The 
essays of Gosson, Sidney, Webbe, Puttenham, which supply most of 
the dramatic criticism of the period, are in Arber's Reprints ; selections 
from these and other critical works with an introduction are collected in 



76 TRAGEDY 

Elizabethan Critical Essays, G. Gregory Smith (1904). J. W. Cunliffe's 
edition of Gascoigne's Posies (1907) contains the plays, which he 
has also edited with an introduction in The Belles-Lettres Series (1906). 
A study of Legge's Richardus Tertius is found in G. B. Churchill's 
Richard III up to Shakespeare (Berlin, 1906) ; and an account of the 
Latin university plays in the article cited, by G. B. Churchill and W. 
Keller (Shakspere Jahrbuch, 1898). W. W. Greg's A List of English 
Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1700 (London Bibliographi- 
cal Society) is based on the title-pages of the original copies. Fleay's 
Biographical Chronicle includes all plays known, extant or not. Greg, 
Fleay, and Schelling supersede Halliwell-Phillipps's Dictionary of Old 
English Plays (1860), and W. C. Hazlitt's Manual of Old English 
Plays (1892). English Drama, a Working Basis, by K. L. Bates and 
L. B. Godfrey, Wellesley College (1895), is the only attempt at a 
directory to modern editions, and though very incomplete, is the most 
serviceable guide to the whole field of English drama. 




CHAPTER IV 

MARLOWE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

HE growing national consciousness that 
reached its triumphant culmination in the 
defeat of Spain made itself felt in the drama, 
specifically in efforts to present the glories 
of English history, and still more potently in an awakened 
responsiveness to the new fields and new incentives for 
artistic ambition. The beginning of the greatness of the 
national drama is significantly coincident with the victory 
over the Armada. By that time the spirit of noble en- 
deavor had found lodgment in every worthy breast. It 
animated Marlowe no less than Drake, and the author 
of the least successful chronicle play as well as admiral 
or counselor. The extraordinary achievements that had 
been contributing to the might of England as a political 
power were, indeed, but one expression of the freedom 
and eagerness of individual initiative that characterized 
this English Renaissance and found other expression in 
the activities and accomplishments of literature. In com- 
parison with the men of preceding generations, the Eliza- 
bethan^J^nglishman faced a world of new horizons, new 
ideas, boundless opportunities, and alluring rewards. 
Every career was open and promised an untrod pathway 
and unworn laurels./ He might win fame as a pirate, 



78 TRAGEDY 

philosopher, or poet; or in the new excitement of living 
he might crowd not one but many careers into the span 
of life. The versatility of a Raleigh only typifies the 
excitement and energy of deed, the lively movement of 
thought which quickened mind and body, and resulted, 
now in a voyage to Virginia, now in a conspiracy, now in 
a sonnet, and now in a history of the universe. And this 
feverishness to make trial of thronging opportunities was 
symptomatic not only of vigor of intellect, celerity of emo- 
tion, and independence of will, but also of an imaginative 
idealism that enlightened the daily living of many a 
sorry citizen, and was destined to live resplendent in the 
verses of Spenser and Shakespeare. In the stir of free 
ideas, the surprise of discovery, and the glow of accom- 
plishment, life grew heroic, attainment seemed easy, and 
no ideals too lofty for the scaling ladders of human aspi- 
ration. Men achieved much and they dreamt of more. 
The apprentice went to the theatre to don Fortunatus*s 
cap or to triumph with Tamburlaine ; every one had his 
El Dorado distant only a short voyage; and, with the 
new world before them, poets and playwrights set sail in 
blithe confidence of splendid discovery. Never before, 
or perhaps since, have so many new things seemed within 
grasp, whether in literature or in life; never has all living 
so throbbed with a sense of the nearness of the unattain- 
able, the kinship of the real and the ideal. 

In non-dramatic literature the incentives of the classics 
and of the Italians from Petrarch to Tasso had led on 
from translations and imitations to experiments and in- 



THE ELIZABETHAN SPIRIT 79 

ventions. In the dozen years before the Armada, lyric 
poetry, criticism, and prose fiction had felt the stir of 
successful English innovation, and the time was almost 
ripe for the vast projects of Spenser, Hooker, and Bacon. 
In comedy the development had been earlier and more 
rapid than in tragedy, and had already in Peele and Lyly 
reached the stage of dexterous expression and varied 
innovation. Whether presenting a story of classical 
mythology or of medieval romance, whether farcical, 
Plautian, pastoral, sentimental, satirical, or spectacular, 
comedy was by the time of Marlowe ready with its ex- 
amples to offer instruction to any writer attempting tragic 
themes. Tragedy could hardly remain longer in the stage 
of translation, imitation, and feeble experiment which 
we have been considering. 

Still further, a stimulus for tragedy was exercised by 
the daily events of that active era. These stirred men's 
imagination and ambition, and must almost inevitably 
have directed artistic impulse toward the heroic, the pas- 
sionate, and the terrible. (The abundance of bloodshed 
in Elizabethan tragedy may find some interpretation in 
the fact that Ben Jonson killed his man in a duel and 
that Marlowe was stabbed in a tavern brawl. The time 
was one of bloodshed, violence, quick and brutal passion ; 
a time in which the torture of a Gloster or the revenge of 
a Shylock was far closer to life, to the life at least of poets 
and dramatists, than such stories are to-day. Drake in 
his cabin drinking and praying with the unmoved lieu- 
tenant whom he was to hang the next day is a bit of fact 



80 TRAGEDY 

that rivals in horror the devilries of a Barabas. Even if 
Seneca's example had not already approved themes 
of adultery, murder, blood-vengeance, the atrocities of 
tyranny, and the deadly strife of father and son, such 
themes must have stirred men's minds in the days of the 
Massacre of St. Bartholemew and the career of Mary 
Stuart. If tradition had not already selected the falls of 
princes as the especial field for tragedy, the history of 
monarchical Europe in the sixteenth century must have 
given such stories a power of appeal hardly to be appre- 
ciated now. In that strenuous generation the dramatist 
must have found artistic impulses from bloody and grue- 
some deeds, and no less from daring ambition, heroic 
struggle, and indomitable greatness of mind. 

The summons, however, which the tragic muse heeded 
came directly from the public theatres and the profes- 
sional actors. The university men who at this time were 
writing for the theatre under the lash and loans of a 
slave-driving theatrical manager may have been tempted 
to forget that their sordid and Bohemian existence offered 
a means for triumphant artistic expression. The London 
theatres were now well established, patronized by the 
courtiers, and secured in prosperity by the motley audi- 
ences that crowded their performances. They had be- 
come important centres in the social life of the time, 
comparable to the newspaper ofiices of a twentieth-cen- 
tury city in their close touch with the daily life about 
them; and in their task of affording amusement and 
information fulfilling in part the functions of periodicals 



THE THEATRE 81 

and novels as well as of the drama at present. The stage, 
without scenery, was still in a transition state between 
the medieval and modern, and, to our view, almost 
unrealizably crude. Places were sometimes indicated 
by signs; properties, beds, tables, or trees were brought 
on or off as occasion required; or, a heavier property, 
like a cave, might remain whether the scene was in cave- 
land or a counting-room. There was no drop curtain; 
actors went off, others came on, and the place changed 
from a seacoast to the palace; or, the actors merely 
moved across the platform, and it transpired that they 
had passed from " a fair and pleasant green " to a room 
in the house of Faustus. At the close of a tragedy all the 
survivors might be needed to bear off the bodies of the 
dead. A balcony in the rear of the stage stood in stead of 
a castle wall or the deck of a ship, while a curtained space 
below might represent an inner room or a dungeon 
vault. A curtain extending across the stage seems at times 
to have been used in managing a change of scene. Spec- 
tacular elements were not lacking : fireworks, ascents and 
descents of gods, armies, coronations, and battles de- 
lighted the eye. On costume, anachronistic but elabo- 
rate, the manager lavished his money and ingenuity. 
Cleopatra tightly laced, Tamburlaine in scarlet copper 
breeches are recorded facts, but Venuses, Apollos, mer- 
maids, devils, satyrs, and nymphs leave something for 
fancy to conceive, as does the " gown to go invisible in " 
which perhaps shielded Ariel or Puck. Of the acting we 
have little information. Female parts were played by 



X 



82 TRAGEDY 

boys; clowns with their jigs were great favorites, but a 
considerable skill in acting must be supposed, — less 
subtle, less occupied with stage business than to-day, 
more declamatory possibly, and more attentive to the 
spoken word. Any superiority in the appreciation pos- 
sessed by the audiences over those of to-day must be 
attributed not to their superior intelligence, but to their 
long training in listening to plays. They probably dif- 
fered from uneducated audiences in the cheaper theatres 
of to-day chiefly, if at all, in spontaneity of emotions, a 
desire for emotional incongruity, and a cultivated delight 
in verbal fireworks or felicities. It is certain that in the 
time of Marlowe they were gaping for sensation and 
joyed in a comedy of beatings, a tragedy of murders, and 
a mixture of jigging and villany. For such audiences, 
for such a stage, under stress of immediate demand re- 
quiring hasty and collaborative work, Marlowe and his 
contemporaries wrote. They were hack writers, and so 
viewed by the literati of their day. Every one of them, 
Shakespeare included, had in the first place to satisfy 
the demands of the public theatres. This needs to be 
remembered no less than the fact that the plays of nearly 
all, of the meanest hack as well as Shakespeare, seem to 
have felt the stir and thrill of the effort to express thought 
in enduring words. 

In the course of the six or seven years ending with 
Marlowe's death in 1593, tragedy experienced a rapid 
and multiform development^^ The various influences 
already noticed in the last chapter as at work were de- 



FORMS OF TRAGEDY 83 

veloped by the ingenuity and innovation of a dozen 
writers, and t-ranslated into the expression of individual 
genius by Marlowe and Shakespeare. - No theory of 
tragedy ruled the theatres ; < no school of dramatists 
adopted any code of principles ; the plays which we class 
as tragedies were mostly known as histories and were 
written in violence to the accepted literary conception. 
Nevertheless, tragedy was establishing itself as a popu- 
lar species of drama, was separating its themes and 
their treatment clearly from those of comedy, and was 
defining the course which it was to follow until the Puri- 
tan revolution. 

The impossibility of determining a precise chronology 
of the stage history of the period renders the exact ap- 
praisal of indebtedness, or the tracing of any certain 
evolution, very insecure. The changes in the companies 
in 1594 and the consequent publication of a large num- 
ber of plays in the same year enable us to fix on a num- 
ber of tragedies acted before Marlowe's death, and we 
may safely add a few others as not later than 1595. 
Among these extant tragedies and in the names of those 
that have not survived there are representatives of vari- 
ous types, — biblical plays, tragedies dealing with 
romantic love, domestic tragedies telling stories of con- 
temporary crimes. In any one of these plays, indeed, 
various types may be combined ; the writers were con- 
cerned with telling stories, not with revolution des genres. 
But the most salient and pervasive forces working in 
tragedy may be roughly denominated as (1) the chronicle 



84 TRAGEDY 

history play, (2) the revenge type of tragedy, (3) the type 
of tragedy created by Marlowe. To these should perhaps 
be added romantic comedy with its idealized love story 
and its element of averted tragedy. But the first three 
types, though overlapping and not distinct, were of 
marked importance in the history of tragedy and need 
especial consideration in connection with the most im- 
portant dramatists of this period, Peele, Kyd, Marlowe, 
and Shakespeare. 

The chronicle history play may claim attention first, 
not because it was demonstrably earlier in appearance 
than the others, but because it engaged the efforts of 
nearly every dramatic writer of the period, and because 
in its disregard of foreign influence or parallel in its 
methods and structure, and in its devotion to the demands 
of the London theatres, it is most typical of the drama 
of the period. The prime essential of a play was that it 
should tell a story. A playwright took his material from 
novella^ poem, or chronicle, and strove to translate it 
into an interesting and varied series of scenes. In the 
chronicles he found material peculiarly suited to such 
translation. Everything was there, — battles, coronations, 
counsels, conspiracies, amours, speeches, characteriza- 
tion, and sentiments. No enlargement was necessary as 
in the case of a novella, no considerations of consistency 
of characterization, few incidents in addition to those 
in the highway or the byways of the narrative, and only 
a minimum of invention. The interest of a distinct plot 
was superseded by that of historical persons, events, 



THE CHRONICLE HISTORY PLAY 85 

and spectacles, and these compelled only such unity as 
might be secured by taking the reign of one monarch as 
the basis of a play, or sometimes of several plays. The 
presentation of history involved a large number of 
persons on the stage, many changes of place, a long 
stretch of time, and an incongruity of matter, all this 
loosely organized into scenes themselves often long and 
varied and admitting some change of place and lapse 
of time within their bounds. Though the scene, rather 
than the act, was the unit in popular drama, it had almost 
no structural value. A play was really a continuous per- 
formance, the actors coming and going, a battle inter- 
vening, and now and then a withdrawal of all the actors 
and the appearance of a new group presaging a marked 
change of place or the beginning of an entirely different 
action. In the arrangement of scenes, however, some 
attention to parallel, contrast, and climax soon became 
manifest; and some integration of the confused material 
from the chronicles, particularly in the separation from 
scenes abounding in action of those purely narrative or 
expository and those purely lyrical, chiefly lamentations. 
In spite of such beginnings of system, the early chronicle 
plays, "The Famous Victories of Henry V," "Jack 
Straw," "Leir," "Edward I," and "The Troublesome 
Reign" are less coherent in structure, more incongru- 
ous in material, and less regardful of any clear fable, 
tragic or comic, than are other contemporary plays. 

To determine criteria to define these plays and their 
successors as a class is by no means easy. They were 



86 TRAGEDY 

usually based on the chronicles, but the method of com- 
position just described was applied to legend or poem 
with similar results, and there were also plays based on 
chronicles of contemporary events. They had for their 
main purpose the presentation of history, but this was 
shared by plays on French and Roman as well as English 
history, and there were historical plays that had no 
marks of the chronicle method of structure. The English 
chronicle plays usually show a pronounced patriotic tem- 
per, but this is often subsidiary and neglected in the desire 
for farce or sensation. The spectacular features are a 
characteristic element, a battle-scene being perhaps the 
most indispensable element or ingredient of a chronicle 
play, but this again fails to supply even more than a 
superficial criterion. In the popularity of the presenta- 
tions of historical facts, all kinds of stories were worked 
over into a likeness to " true chronicle history," and the 
genuine historical, legendary, and biographical plays are 
hardly distinguishable from the pretenders. An illumin- 
ating illustration of the characteristics of the national 
drama about 1590 can be found in a comparison of two 
dramatic versions of a romance in Cinthio's " Hecatom- 
mithi," one by Cinthio himself, the other by Robert 
Greene. The Italian play is a tragicomedy in strict Sene- 
can form, in which Arrenopia (Greene's Dorothea) ap- 
pears as a declamatory queen confiding her troubles to 
the attendant nurse. Greene took the romantic comedy, 
added some pseudo-historical events, patriotic sentiments, 
and a pitched field for the finale, and called the whole 



THE CHRONICLE HISTORY PLAY 87 

" The Scottish Historie of James IV, slaine at Flodden.'* 
For our purpose the chronicle plays are to be regarded 
less as a distinct type than as representing a set of prac- 
tices in vogue at this period and widely influential on 
the drama's development. They possessed the following 
characteristics and imposed some or all of them on very 
different forms of drama: subjects drawn from Eng- 
lish history, the presentation of historical and political 
events, an incongruous mixture of material, a narrative 
structure almost as unorganized as the chronicles them- 
selves, patriotic sentiments, and the stage pageantry of 
court and camp. 

From their earliest appearance, however, the chronicle 
plays offered opportunities for developments later con- 
summated by Shakespeare. I Comic scenes were freely 
interspersed to enliven the tedium of royal declama- 
tions, and in these lay the possibility of the combination 
of history and comedy in the Falstaff plays. On the other 
hand, the history of a doleful fall of a prince or the re- 
tribution visited on some tyrant gave the plays a tragic 
tone and opened the way for "Macbeth" and "Lear.'* 
"The Troublesome Reign of King John,"^ the basis 
of Shakespeare's play, is the best example of an early 

^ It consists of two parts published 1591, and acted, as the prologue 
indicates, shortly after Tamburlaine, perhaps in 1588. Its scenes cover 
about the same ground as Shakespeare's play, with the addition of a 
ribald account of the sack of a monastery, an explanation of the poison- 
ing of John in his treatment of the clergy, and a scene of some power in 
which Philip obtains from his mother. Lady Fauconbridge, a confession 
that his father was Richard. 



88 TRAGEDY 

chronicle play presenting undeveloped possibilities for 
tragedy. It is written partly in blank verse, partly in 
rhyme, and partly in prose. It does not follow the chron- 
icles with any fidelity, but twists history, adds fiction, 
and proclaims throughout a vigorous protestant patriot- 
ism. Battles, embassies, farce, orations, death, and much 
else mingle together, each scene being treated like another 
and no discernible method being followed in their ar- 
rangement or proportion, except that of a loose adher- 
ence to the scheme of " a life and death." The first part 
closes with John crowned and assured of the miscarriage 
of his intended murder of Arthur ; in the second part, as 
the address to the reader declares, 

"First scenes shows Arthur's death in infancie, 
And last concludes John's fatall tragedie." 

" The Troublesome Reign " indicates what little ad- 
vance had been made toward tragedy when Marlowe's 
first play appeared. The prologue to that play was a 
declaration of reform and innovation. 

" From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits. 
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, 
"We'll lead you to the stately tent of war, 
Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaipjp 
Threatening the world with high astounding terms. 
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword." 

The doggerel rhyme favored in the popular drama was 
to give place to blank verse, and the jigging clowns to 
heroic themes and "high astounding terms." Marlowe 



MARLOWE 89 

came to the theatre,^ fresh from the university, his fancy 
aflame with the beauty of Latin verse and story, his 
mind storming with the problems and ambitions of 
adolescent genius. He threw aside Senecan traditions 
and devoted himself to meeting the demands of the pro- 
fessional stage. When a few years later he died, English 
tragedy had been created anew largely through his 
achievement. 

His independence and initiative are shown in his 
choice of subjects. Although in " Dido " he took a stand- 
ard theme of humanistic tragedy, and in the Henry VI 
plays and " Edward II " followed the prevailing taste 
for English history, and in "The Massacre of Paris" 
another fashion for the dramatization of current atroci- 
ties ; yet in " Tamburlaine " he chose the story of a world 
conqueror, in " Faustus " a legend that had just entered 
print in the German " Volksbuch " of 1587, and in " The 
Jew of Malta" he worked over unknown sources into 
a tragedy of revenge with evident freedom of invention. 
All three stories present notable contributions to tragic 

^ Tamburlaine in two parts, certainly acted as early as 1588, gained 
an immediate and long-continued popularity, and was followed by a 
number of plays, all tragedies or histories. Without reckoning the 
numerous plays that have been assigned to Marlowe on no sufficient 
grounds, he collaborated on the Tragedy of Dido (1594), perhaps an 
early work, and on the three parts of Henry VI; and was the author 
of The Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus, printed 1604, acted 1588 ( ?) ; 
The Jew of Malta, acted about 1589, and long the most popular of 
Henslow's repertoire; The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death 
of Edward 77, printed 1594, acted about 1591 ; and The Massacre of 
Paris, of an unknown date of acting. 



90 TRAGEDY 

themes, and the last two disregard both the fashion for 
historical subjects and the requirement that tragedy 
deal only with princes. These new and varied themes 
gave a chance for a considerable revolution in the 
content of tragedy. Revenge, murders, battles, intrigue, 
physical horrors are still prominent; but the Senecan 
round of incest and adultery disappears, and the " Mirror 
for Magistrates " no longer represents the epitome of tragic 
action. Marlowe's choice and treatment of plots seem, 
indeed, dictated by a new conception of tragedy, as 
dealing not merely with a life and death, or a bloody 
crime, or a reversal of fortune, but with the heroic strug- 
gle of a great personality, doomed to inevitable defeat. 
" Tamburlaine " is scarcely a tragedy at all, but rather 
a chronicle of the hero's greatness; but in "Faustus'* 
and "The Jew" heroes with ambitions boundless and 
passionate like Tamburlaine's are overwhelmed in the 
end by the inexorable destiny of human weakness. In 
"Edward II," where the hero is less dominant over the 
action, the study of historical facts results in a more re- 
strained, more human presentation of the same theme, 
a ruling passion drawing the protagonist to pitiful de- 
feat. 

In the structure of his plots Marlowe forsook the Sene- 
can models and began with the methods of the chronicle 
play. "Tamburlaine" is a chronicle history, presenting 
the story of the events of a life and ending with death. 
' Originally the play contained comic scenes, omitted in 
the published form and evidently of no value in structure 



MARLOWE 91 

or conception. Without these there is enough of a medley, 
though the amazing succession of conquests, defiances, 
murders, harangues, battles, funerals, wooings, and hor- 
rors is arranged with considerable skill. There is mani- 
fest regard for contrast in the alternating exhibitions of 
Tamburlaine's power and his enemies' weakness; his 
love for Zenocrate, an addition to the source, is integrated 
with the main story of conquest ; and in Part I the climac- 
tical arrangement is emphasized by the division into acts. 
Each att comprises an important stage in Tamburlaine's 
career, act v presenting the culmination in the suicide of 
the Turkish emperor and empress, the conquest of Ara- 
bia, Zenocrate's former betrothed, and the submission 
of her conquered father to her marriage with Tambur- 
laine. Part II, the prologue implies, was an afterthought 
due to the popularity of Part I. The climax is carried on 
somewhat loosely up to the harnessing of the jades of 
Asia; but the reversal of fortune, though developed in 
the death of Zenocrate, the unworthiness of the eldest 
son, and the approach of death to Tamburlaine, is not 
given effective emphasis. Tamburlaine's death is merely 
the end of the play, not a tragic catastrophe. Epical and 
crude though their structure is, the two plays possess a 
firmer organization and a greater unity than any pre- 
ceding popular tragedy. Everything centres in the pro- 
tagonist; he keeps the middle of the stage; his towering 
\ passion and incessant declamation fix one's attention; 
episodes like the deaths of the Turks or of Olympia 
hardly divert the mind from his titanic personality. 



92 TRAGEDY 

A similar unity governs the structure of "Faustus" 
and "The Jew." In each there are many actions, some 
comic, instead of one serious action, and the history 
of a hfetime instead of a great emotional crisis; but in 
each the dominant figure and the course of his controlling 
passion impose a certain unity of structure. Both begin 
with soliloquies, revealing the protagonists at the height 
of fortune and about to face crises in their careers; and 
it is significant of the increased importance given to inner 
conflict that reflective soliloquies, neglected in " Tambur- 
laine," play a considerable part, especially in " Faustus." 
In both plays there is also advance in the clear concep- 
tion of catastrophe, which now controls the structure. In 
" The Jew " his thwarted lust for gold drives him through 
a series of villanous triumphs over difiiculties until he is 
melodramatically hoist with his own petard. In " Faus- 
tus" the choice of the devilish magic leads through ap- 
parent success, past opportunities for repentance, to final 
remorse and damnation. In both plays, the domination 
of the protagonist by a passion, its conflicting joys and 
sorrows, and its final failure become points for emphasis. 
The history of a life thus becomes organized into a 
tragedy. 

In "Edward II," Marlowe's masterpiece in structure 
as in other respects, there is an absence of comedy, for 
which he seems to have had no aptitude, and adherence 
to the chronicles is governed by his maturing sense of the 
structural principles which should proportion the tragic 
story. Twenty years of confusion are condensed into five 



MARLOWE 93 

acts which attain dramatic organization not only under 
the direction of the central personality and the inevitable 
catastrophe, but also from the skillful handling of the 
counter-force. The play begins with a salient manifesta- 
tion in the recall of Gaveston of the passion which is to be 
the king's downfall. The hazardous combination of the 
two similar careers of Gaveston and Spenser is adroitly 
managed; it develops the central theme of Edward's 
weakness and brings into active conflict the counter-force 
of the barons under the leadership of Mortimer. The 
alternating triumph and discomfiture of the king in his 
struggle with the barons leads to the climax of their 
humiliation at the end of act iii; and thus the turning- 
point of the action is given an emphasis not found 
in earlier plays. Henceforth the counter-force is in the 
ascendant, and. the catastrophe is realized with a tremen- 
dous power that justifies Lamb's extravagance: "the 
death scene of Marlowe's king moves pity and terror 
beyond any scene ancient or modem with which I am 
acquainted." The play, to be sure, has many faults of 
structure. It is the product of an immature period of the 
drama and of crude theatrical conditions ; but it indicates 
clearly how Marlowe was developing tragic movement 
out of the confused narratives of the chronicles, and was 
giving to a presentation of diverse and crowded actions 
principles not altogether unlike those that Aristotle had 
found in the Attic drama. 

It should be added that the manifest excellences of 
the dramatic treatment lie less in the structure of any one 



94 TRAGEDY 

play as a whole than in the handling of the separate 
scenes. These have, of course, the peculiarities of the 
popular stage and the chronicle plays. Events are some- 
times reported by an intercalary narrative like scene ii, 
act i, of "Edward II," which consists of four lines by 
Gaveston, announcing that the nobles have gone to Lam- 
beth, and four words of reply by Kent. Soliloquies are 
often used to explain action or character. In the task of 
translating incident into dramatic situation, however, 
Marlowe had the advantages of centuries of dramatic 
practice and the traditions of tragic acting, and his genius 
often worked with facility and power. These qualities 
are most manifest in the death scenes. Olympia, Ba- 
jazeth, Zabina, Zenocrate, all die with at least stage 
effectiveness; and in the deaths of Faustus and Edward, 
Marlowe's dramatic power reached its highest mark. 
Death, synonymous with tragic catastrophe, was revealed 
to future dramatists as something more than physical 
horror or the end of existence. Death became the loss 
of active and glorious living, the negation of individual 
power, the expiring struggle of the drama of life, its 
last defiance and its most irresistible appeal to pity and 
terror. 

Characterization, like conception and structure, in 
Marlowe's tragedy is largely an affair of the protagonist. 
Minor figures are for the most part mere sketches without 
any sustained and consistent delineation. Only in "Ed- 
ward II" does the antagonist receive much attention, 
and only in that play is the character of the tragic hero 



MARLOWE 95 

free from lapses into caricature and absurdity. The 
protagonists, as in many tragedies before and since, are 
evil men intent on evil deeds. They appeal to our sym- 
pathy only in misfortune and disaster; in more fortunate 
circumstances they run counter to moral laws and excite 
a mixture of admiration, horror, and even contempt. 
Tamburlaine the atheist and Faust the dealer in magic 
invited a greater condemnation in every Christian then 
than now. Barabas is conceived, under the inspiration 
of Machiavclli and perhaps also of stage practice, as an 
intriguing villain with all the accompaniments ever since 
familiar in drama and fiction. He is the source of all evil 
and utterly without conscience; he avows his villany 
to the audience and he works by crafty intrigue with the 
aid of an equally conscienceless accomplice. Edward II, 
n the other hand, is of the type of tyrants, weak, vacil- 
ating, and self-indulgent, and he offers the difficult 
1 dramatic problem of a protagonist who is sometimes 
contemptible and must sometimes be heroic and pitiful. 
Marlowe's conception of a tragic hero, however, tran- 
scended any outlines furnished by his sources or any stage 
types such as villain and tyrant. He conceived his heroes 
first of all as men capable of great passions, consumed 
by their desires, abandoned to the pursuit of their lusts, 
whether they led to glory, butchery, loss of kingdom, or 
eternal damnation. This intensity of emotion gives them 
an elevation and a heroic interest that outlasts contempt- 
ibility or pathos. Nor are they without representational 
value. They linger in the mind as men, absurd, exag- 



I 



96 TRAGEDY 

gerated, monstrous at times, but appealingly human in 
moments when their passion rings true, and impres- 
sively typical of the eternal struggle of passion and 
desire against the fixed limits of human attainment. It 
is in the realization of their emotions that the plays 
secure their great impressiveness. Tragedy has become 
not the presentation of history, myth, or events of any 
sort, but the presentation of the passionate struggle and 
pitiful defeat of an extraordinary human being. 

Genuine human passion and a vital conception of life's 
tragedy found expression in verse, sometimes inspired, 
sometimes absurd, but always spontaneous and unfal- 
tering. Blank verse, borrowed from Italy and adopted 
in English Senecan plays, now became a new instrument, 
and its preeminent adaptability for tragic poetry hence- 
forth long remained unquestioned. If it has had many 
greater masters since, it had none comparable before, 
and, in spite of stiffness, monotony, and great uneven- 
ness, it rises now and again to remarkable technical 
excellence. It is sui generis, without known models, 
though it gathers to itself many of the prevailing charac- 
teristics of Renaissance poetry. It has plenty of Senecan 
hyperbole, but curiously little of Senecan antithesis or 
aphorism; it abounds in rant and bombast; it is over- 
adorned with classical allusion; it delights in ornament 
and sonority; and in the main it is declamatory and 
lyrical rather than dramatically suited to character and 
situation. Again, it is mannered and often monotonous, 
especially in " Tamburlaine," where the repetition of 



MARLOWE 97 

names and the recurrence of polysyllabic words at the 
ends of lines give the familiar swing: — 

"To ride in triumph through Persepolis" . . , 
" Soft ye, my lords, and sweet Zenocrate "... 
" Then shall my native city, Samarcanda." 

Yet the lover of romantic poetry will find delight in the 
very impetuosity of the rant, the thunder of the decla- 
mation, the roll of the proper names, the color and 
pageantry of the descriptions, the occasional loveliness of 
the luxurious classicism, and yet more in the splendid 
surges of the verse to reveal the turmoil and anguish of pas- 
sionate death. From the first moment Marlowe was an 
undoubted poet; and to his tremendous facility of words 
and rhythm he was adding, as " Edward II " reveals, a 
moderation of ornament, an evenness of power, and a 
dramatic consistency, while still retaining the potentiality 
of dazzling dramatic flash. He brought not only blank 
verse but poetry to the English drama, and the greatness 
of its style dates from his achievement. 

We must not, however, in the poet forget the playwright, 
or lose sight of Marlowe's^ contributions to the purely 
theatrical side of the drama. /xTamburlaine " set a stand- 
ard in stage effects as well as in poetry./^vings and sultans 
appear in droves, crowns are handed about like toys, 
treaties are torn, cities stormed, battles fought. Frequently 
eight or ten chieftains crowd the stage with their trains. 
The tents of the conqueror are pitched and changed from 
white to red and then to black as the beleaguered city con- 



98 TRAGEDY 

tinues to withstand his power. An emperor and empress 
dash out their brains against the bars of their cages. Tam- 
burlaine drives the bridled monarchs harnessed to his 
chariot. Two bodies are burnt ; there are murders by the 
dozen ; and there is a solemn funeral scene where the hearse 
advances in the light of a burning town. The popular 
stage had probably never seen such a spectacle before. 
In " Faustus " new and even more surprising stage effects 
are supplied to illustrate the wonders of magic. In " The 
Jew of Malta" there is a display of plots and atrocities 
which the plays of the next thirty years strove in vain to 
surpass. Apart from these spectacular elements, it is ob- 
vious that the characterization and declamation, in fact 
the very structure of the plays, were designed to supply 
full opportunity for the acting of Edward Alleyn. He was 
nearly seven feet tall, we are told, the greatest actor of his 
day, and especially skilled in majestic parts. ' So to him, 
perhaps, as well as to Marlowe's conception of tragedy, 
was due the one-part play, the sonorous lines, and the 
passionate protagonists. 

Such considerations recall the double purpose, hardly 
separable from the drama and particularly manifest in the 
Elizabethan dramatists, the two desires, to please their 
audiences and to create literature. The spectacle, bom- 
bast, and horrors, the new and startling stories of Mar- 
lowe's plays were certainly intended to win his public, 
and they probably caused no twinges to his artistic con- 
science. On the other hand, while hardly an element of 
the dramas is without the influence of theatrical condi- 



THOMAS KYD 99 

tions, and while of deliberate artistic theories there is little 
evidence, yet the study of character, the underlying con- 
ceptions, the maturing power of structure, as well as the 
beauty and wisdom of separate passages, reveal a mind 
of intellectual and emotional profundity seeking to give 
noble expression to the things in life that impressed him 
most vividly. In the traffic of the stage the young poet 
found a chance to study men and their motives, to seek 
" the immortal flowers of poetry,'^ and to utter something 
of his own experience and view of life. Into the rapid 
translation of stories for the stage he threw his own con- 
ception of the rewards and defeats of an overmastering 
passion, of the glory of struggle, and the pity and terror 
of failure. In the further development of the drama, his 
influence continued not only in his series of tragedies 
forming a fairly definite type, but also as that of an in- 
spiring personality. 

"Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, 
Had in him those brave translunary things 
That the first poets had; his raptures were 
All air and fire, which made his verses clere; 
For that fine madnes still he did retaine. 
Which rightly should possess a poet's braine." 

Drayton: Epistle to Henry Reynolds. 

The influence upon the drama of Marlowe's whilom 
friend, Thomas Kyd, was not due to his personality, con- 
cerning which recently discovered documents create no 
very favorable impression, or to any remarkable poetic 
genius, but to a single play and the type of tragedy which 

L.orc. 



100 TRAGEDY 

it fathered. "The Spanish Tragedy,"^ entered in the 
Stationers' Register, 1592, and probably acted at about 
the same time as " Tamburlaine," and earher than Mar- 
lowe's other plays, was the first representative of this type 
of revenge tragedies, and it gained an immediate and 
lasting popularity, though after a time encountering the 
ridicule of Jonson and later dramatists. The story of 
revenge had already appeared in "Horestes" and in 
Latin plays at the uniyersities ; and theme, ghost, treat- 
ment, and structure were derived from Seneca by Kyd 
and adapted with great originality to the popular drama. 
At least, no other dramatist has as good a claim to be 
considered the creator of a species of tragedy that had a 
long series of representatives even after its culmination 
in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." 

The main theme of the play is revenge of a father for 
a son, superintended by a ghost ; and this theme attaches 
to itself other motives important both here and in their 
later developments. The revenge is delayed by hesitation 
on the part of Hieronimo, who finds his task a difficult 
one and requires much proof and superabundant de- 
liberation to spur his irresolution into activity. Madness 

^ The only other play certainly by Kyd is a translation of Garnier's 
Cornelia, 1595, which was doubtless never acted. His authorship of 
the First Part of Jeronimo, 1605, is denied by recent critics, and at 
most the text represents a very corrupt abridgment of his work. »So/i- 
man and Perseda, S. R. 1592, is attributed to him solely on internal 
evidence, and may have been by an imitator. The non-extant Hamlet, 
alluded to by Nash in 1589, and not until twelve years later used by 
Shakespeare as the basis of his play, is now generally assigned to Kyd. 



THOMAS KYD 101 

is another accompaniment of the main theme ; the second 
title of the 1602 quarto, " Old Hieronimo mad againe," 
indicating how important it was in the stage presentation. 
Hieronimo pretends madness, and his pretended madness 
often passes into real melancholy and distraction. Isa- 
bella, his wife, is driven by insanity to suicide. Intrigue 
used both against and by the avenger is another impor- 
tant element; the villain is a machinator and Hieronimo 
finally accomplishes his revenge by means of dissimula- 
tion and trickery. According to both Senecan and na- 
tional precedents, vengeance moves in a pathway of 
blood ; ten of the dramatis personae, innocent and guilty 
alike, pass to " the loathsome pool of Acheron," and the 
final slaughter leaves five bodies to be borne from the 
stage. Intrigue and slaughter characterize most of the 
tragedies of this period, notably "The Jew of Malta," 
but the ghost-directed revenge, hesitation, insanity, and 
the meditative soliloquies distinguished more specifically 
the Kydian species. In spite of the medley of intrigue 
and carnage, there is introduced, after Senecan fashion, 
much philosophizing and introspection. Meditations on 
fate, revenge, suicide, and similar subjects play a large 
part in the development of the story and are most fre- 
quently given the form of soliloquies. Hieronimo's inner 
struggle is revealed in lonely communings, now in defense, 
now in bitter condemnation of his delay. 

The structure is an interesting adaptation of Senecan 
and popular characteristics. The play does not confine 
itself to the last phase of an action, and it introduces 



102 TRAGEDY 

various actions introductory or subsidiary to that of the 
revenge, and a mixture of comedy. Moreover, every- 
thing is represented on the stage with the freedom estab- 
Hshed in the popular drama. On the other hand, there 
is much exposition by means of narrative, and Revenge 
and the ghost of Andrea appear, after Senecan fashion, 
as a prologue, and after each act as a sort of vestigial 
chorus. While there is a surplus of violent and external 
action, the epic, lyric, and reflective scenes picture an 
inner conflict and supply both aphorisms and a searching 
psychology. When late in the play Hieronimo's revenge 
for his son is finally started, it has to contend with both 
his own hesitation and the intrigues of the villain. Its 
development, in comparison with "Hamlet," is absurdly 
faulty because of Kyd's failure to make clear from the 
start the character of the avenger ; but, if it is studied as 
a first attempt to give structure to a complex theme, the 
vicissitudes of Hieronimo's irresolution and frenzy will 
seem carefully designed and strikingly prophetic of the 
course of Hamlet's struggle. 

Kyd's skill in devising stage situations is shown by the 
dramatic value and lasting effect on the public of the 
scene in which Hieronimo is called from his naked bed 
to discover the body of his son hanging in the arbor, or 
of the scene in which, offering a handkerchief to the 
weeping Senex, he draws forth the bloody napkin which 
he has kept as a reminder of his son's death. The play 
within the play, used here as a means of revenge; the 
scenes in which Isabella "runs lunatick"; the laments 



THOMAS KYD 103 

and final exultation of the ghost ; the exhibition of the body 
of Horatio after the mock play, found later imitators 
and became usual accessories of revenge tragedies. In- 
deed, minor bits of stage business, as the wearing of black, 
the swearing by the cross of the sword, the capture of the 
accomplice by the watch, the reading of a book before 
a soliloquy, the falling on the ground as an expression of 
grief, though not the inventions of Kyd, were given their 
later vogue partly through the popularity of this play. 

Some of the types of character represented also appear 
again and again in later plays. Lorenzo is the villain far 
excellence; his accomplice is grotesque as well as evil; 
and Bel Imperia, both prettily sentimental and desper- 
ately revengeful, is of a type not uncommon in later tra- 
gedy. The character of Hieronimo, rudely as it is drawn, 
is not without subtlety of conception. This type of tragic 
hero, very different from Marlowe's, naturally good and 
noble, meditative by temperament, driven to melancholy 
and madness by the responsibility forced on him by crime, 
and at length accomplishing direful revenge through 
trickery and irony, is manifestly a precursor of Hamlet. 
Kyd's style justifies Nash's description, " whole handfulls 
of tragical speeches " and " a blank verse bodged up with 
ifs and ands." It displays the rhetorician rather than 
the poet and, like his conception and structure, gives evi- 
dence of an ingenious innovator adapting Seneca. It 
abounds in artificial balance, parallelism, antitheses, 
word-play, strained figures, and it harrows hell for its 
tragic vocabulary; but its love scenes have a verbal 



104 TRAGEDY 

prettiness and its tirades and soliloquies helped to confer 
on subsequent tragic style sententiousness and elevation 
as well as rant. Far inferior to " Tamburlaine " as an 
artistic achievement, "The Spanish Tragedy" can no 
more than that play be pushed aside as a mere blood and 
thunder tirade. Beneath its absurdities there lies the 
conception of an inner struggle against overwhelming 
responsibility, and of the conflict of the individual against 
evil and fate. 

From the success of such a play Kyd may very naturally 
have turned to the similar story of revenge embodied in 
Belleforest's " Historic of Hamblet." From contemporary 
references we infer that the old " Hamlet " was a tragedy 
of blood, written under Senecan influence, and contain- 
ing a ghost that cried " revenge." If, as seems undoubted, 
it was used by Shakespeare, traces of it must be found in 
the German version of Hamlet, in the corrupt first quarto, 
and even in Shakespeare's final version; but there is as 
yet no agreement among scholars as to what can be at- 
tributed to Shakespeare's borrowing rather than to his 
invention and transformation. It seems entirely prob- 
able, however, that the early play was a companion-piece 
to "The Spanish Tragedy," containing the motives of 
revenge, hesitation, insanity, intrigue, and slaughter, with 
the addition of the murderer's passion for the wife of 
the murdered. On the now established theory that the 
play was by Kyd, we may infer a protagonist like Hiero- 
nimo, much meditating and soliloquizing, a dramatic 
structure like that of "The Spanish Tragedy," a play 



THOMAS KYD 105 

within a play, a mad Ophelia, and an intrigue culminat- 
ing in slaughter. There are evidences in Marston and 
later contributors to the revenge type that the original 
"Hamlet," fully as much as "The Spanish Tragedy," 
served as their model ; while doubtless like " The Spanish 
Tragedy," Kyd's "Hamlet" must have borne a much 
closer resemblance than even that play to Shakespeare's 
masterpiece. 

" Soliman and Perseda," if not by Kyd, at least shows 
many evidences of his influence and is itself an interesting 
combination of the tragedy of revenge and romantic 
comedy. Love, Fortune, and Death make up a Kydian 
chorus and debate for supremacy until the close, when 
Death, like the Ghost, exults in an enumeration of the 
dead. The love story furnishes a clearly defined plot. 
The course of true love, despite the heroine's jealousy, 
an unintended murder by the hero, his banishment, the 
sack of Rhodes by the Turks, and the Sultan's passion 
for the heroine, ascends through the first four acts to 
the reunion and prospective happiness of the lovers. 
The fifth act proceeds to their separation and death 
through the Sultan's wickedness. Some of the incidents 
are those of romantic comedy, such as the use of the chain 
as a symbol of loyal love, its loss, the resulting jealousy, 
and the donning of boy's clothes by the heroine in order 
to receive death from the sword of the hated suitor. The 
fun of the piece is furnished by a miles gloriosus, Basilisco, 
and the extraordinary merit of his characterization fur- 
nishes the chief reason for doubting Kyd's authorship. 



106 TRAGEDY 

Over lyric love, fortune, and fun, however, Death reigns 
supreme. This is his favorite tragedy, for eighteen per- 
sons are actually killed on the stage, and at the close not 
one of the dramatis personae is left to bear off the bodies 
of the slain. 

The successes of Marlowe and Kyd gave tragic stories 
a new popularity with actors and audiences, and the stage 
was occupied with fiercely declaiming Asiatic conquerors, 
deep-dyed villains, and shrieking ghosts. Marlowe's 
themes, characters, and blank verse found many imita- 
tors, while Kyd's plays encouraged the presentation of 
stories of ghosts and revenge similar to those in Seneca 
and his English imitators. Direct imitations of Seneca 
in technic and language are also common. The abundance 
of bloodshed is invariable. A wide range of material was 
drawn upon, including Asiatic story, Italian novelle, 
Plutarch, Xenophon, and the Bible, although the English 
chronicles remained the favorite source, and the ma- 
jority have at least the semblance of a historical setting. 
Many have a mixture of comic material, but they show 
in general a preponderance of tragic events and emotions 
far greater than in the early popular tragedies. There 
seems to have been a general effort in conformity with an 
address to the audience placed in the second act of " The 
Wars of Cyrus," acted by the Children of the Revels, 
which announces that they have " exiled from our tragicke 
stage" "needlesse antickes," and promises "mournfull 
plaints writ sad, and tragicke tearmes." The gentle reader 
will not linger long over any of these plays or discover in 



MINOR TRAGEDIES 107 

them signs of nascent genius, but they have a consider- 
able interest in illustrating further the development of 
chronicle history toward tragedy, the influence of the 
Senecan tradition, and the dominating power of Mar- 
lowe's example. They also inform us of the conditions 
governing tragedy when Shakespeare began his career. 
In their many resemblances one to another we have evi- 
dence not so much of direct borrowings as of the close 
relations then existing among the few theatrical play- 
wrights and companies. Any successful innovation was 
bound to have its immediate imitations, and on the other 
hand the keen rivalry for success was likely to result in 
innovation and novelty. 

Of these plays perhaps "Locrine"^ has the most di- 
verse indebtedness. It presents a story of a bloody family 
feud, but it is also of the chronicle history order, with a 
mixture of battles, patriotism, and farce. It exhibits bor- 
rowings from Spenser, imitations of " Tamburlaine," Ate 
as a chorus, dumb shows requiring a menagerie, two 
ghosts, one of whom takes part in the action, and a story 
of double revenge. The hero is occupied with revenge 
number one until the fourth act, when his infidelity makes 
him the object of a return revenge that culminates in his 
death. Among the plays mainly indebted to Marlowe 
are: Greene's " Alphonsus of Aragon," a comedy that is 
almost a travesty on the first part of "Tamburlaine"; 

* Printed 1594, "as newly set forth, overseen, and corrected by W. 
S.," sometimes assigned to Peele, and in an earlier form perhaps acted 
about 1590. 



108 TRAGEDY 

"Selimus," ascribed to Greene, which also shows Sene- 
can structure and philosophy ; " The Wounds of Civil War, 
or the Tragedies of Marius and Sylla," the first extant 
play based on Plutarch; "The Wars of Cyrus," in part 
romantic comedy; and Peele's " Battle of Alcazar," which 
has a presenter, dumb shows, three ghosts, and a Moor- 
ish villain of the same class as Marlowe's Barabas and 
Aaron in "Titus Andronicus." 

The English chronicle plays also felt Marlowe's influ- 
ence, most notably in Shakespeare's early historical plays, 
to be considered in a moment, but also in several plays 
almost contemporary with "Edward II" and the first 
versions of "Henry VI." "The True Tragedy of Rich- 
ard III" (1594), by an unknown author or authors, 
seems to have preceded Shakespeare's play and to have 
followed the third part of "Henry VI." It presents a 
combination of chronicle play with Marlowesque pro- 
tagonist and a Kydian apparatus of revenge. The ghost 
of Clarence appears at the beginning crying, " Vindicta,'* 
and Truth and Poetry supply the necessary exposition. 
The revenge element becomes prominent toward the 
end of the play, when the ghosts of Richard's victims ap- 
pear to him in a dream, not visible as in Shakespeare, 
and the remorseful villain declares that not merely his 
victims but all the forces of nature, sun, moon, and 
planets, cry revenge : — 

" The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge. 
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge." 

Richard is a man of powerful will carried away by ambi- 



TRAGIC CHRONICLE PLAYS 109 

tion and evidently modeled on Tamburlaine ; but unlike 
the Scythian and like Faustus, he is conscience-smitten, 
and his punishment comes in remorse as well as death. 
This conception, based on the chronicle, is treated with 
power, but in the main the play is a hodge-podge. More 
worthy examples of chronicle history are " Edward III," 
often ascribed to Marlowe and not unworthy of him, and 
the anonymous "Tragedy of Woodstock." ^ The latter 
shows frequent resemblances to "Edward II" and ap- 
parently preceded Shakespeare's *' Richard II," leaving 
off at the point where that play begins. The events of 
half a reign are focused about the central personalities 
of Richard and Woodstock, a weak king beset by flatterers 
and an honorable and patriotic leader of the nobles. 
The construction is skillful in its integration of comedy 
with the main action and its alternation of tragic and 
comic, action and counsel, force and counter-force; and 
the characterization is remarkably well individualized. 
Woodstock, especially, has human appeal and is notable 
as a tragic hero, or at least the central figure of a history, 
who meets misfortune and death through no fault of his 
own but solely through the wickedness of others. 

Holinshed's chronicle is also the source of "Arden of 
Feversham" (1592), sometimes ascribed on very insuf- 
ficient grounds to Shakespeare, the earliest extant domes- 
tic tragedy. The play deals with a notorious murder of 
some forty years before, and follows the crude drama- 

^ Preserved in MS. and first printed in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch 
in 1899. 



110 TRAGEDY 

turgy of the earliest chronicle plays. The stage presenta- 
tion of notably brutal murders is common to-day and 
was to be expected on the Elizabethan stage, but the play 
seems also to represent reaction from the royalties, mar- 
vels, and unrealities of the contemporary tragedy. The 
epilogue, indeed, offers a defiance of romanticism and 
the since well-worn creed of the realist. 

"Gentlemen, we hope youle pardon this naked tragedy, 
Wherein no filed points are foisted in 
To make it gratious to the eare or eye; 
For simple truth is gratious enough, 
And needes no other points of glosing stuffe." 

Notwithstanding this protestation, occasional mono- 
logues reveal the common stylistic decorations. The 
play is tediously detailed and artlessly realistic, though 
it has some vigorous blank verse and several powerful 
scenes; the most powerful, when Michael in the middle 
of the night is awaiting the murderers of his master, re- 
calling a well-known passage in " The Spanish Tragedy." 
But the greatest merit of the play lies in the portrait of 
Alice Arden, absorbed in a despicable passion, but cun- 
ning and unabashed, incomparably the most lifelike evil 
woman up to this time depicted in the drama. 

Peele's " The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe, 
with the Tragedie of Absalon," acted about 1591, has, 
unlike "Arden," many "filed points to make it gratious 
to the eare and eye." It gains a unique interest as the 
only extant tragedy of this period based on the biblical 
narrative. The bible story is treated just as a historical 



PEELE 111 

chronicle would have been; and the play, divided by 
choruses into three "discourses," ofiPers no advance in 
conception, structure, or characterization on the average 
tragedy of the period. Yet it is the masterpiece of one of 
the most active among Shakespeare's predecessors and 
illustrates his most distinctive contribution to the drama's 
development. As the author of "Alcazar," "Edward I," 
and possibly " Locrine," as well as " David and Bethsabe," 
Peele's contribution deserves some note. His dramatic 
career began at Oxford, where he made a version of one 
of the "Iphigenias" of Euripides, which was acted at 
Christ Church, and where he also aided in the production 
of Dr. Gager's Latin plays. In London he became the 
friend of Nash, Greene, and Marlowe, and the versatile 
adopter of the latest dramatic modes, whether in comedy, 
pastoral, history, or tragedy. In his best work, however, 
and especially in " David and Bethsabe," there are graces 
of style which justify Nash's eulogy of his friend as 
"primus verborum artifex." The great innovation of 
this early drama was, after all, in poetic style; and in 
furthering this Peele may claim a place only second to 
Marlowe. If Marlowe gave sweep and grandeur to blank 
verse, Peele brought a sweetness of cadence and, as 
Professor Ward observes, "a vivacity of fancy and a 
variety of imagery." As Marlowe turned everything into 
sonorous phrase, now bombastic, now superb, so Peele 
turned every thought to music and fancy, sometimes 
banal, sometimes lovely. "David and Bethsabe," with 
its oriental setting, though treated with careless dramatic 



112 TRAGEDY 

art, proved an inspiration to the stylist. The excess of 
verbaHsm, indeed, gives the play a sugary and monoto- 
nous effect, and its poetry loses connection with character 
or situation. Absalon plays with conceits for twenty-five 
lines while hanging by his hair, and laments melodiously 
for fifteen lines more after being stabbed. But there is 
charm and gracefulness everjrwhere, in the choruses, in 
the defense of Ham on, and in the parables, and now and 
again the very allurement and luxury of words, as in the 
famous, 

" Now comes my lover tripping like the roe 
And brings my longings tangled in her hair." 

While this operatic verbalism with its faults and merits 
cannot of course be assigned wholly to Peele, he seems 
to have been in the drama one of its earliest and most 
influential purveyors. 

The dozen plays just noticed furnish departures from, 
as well as adaptations of, the Kydian and Marlowean 
types of tragedy, but they reveal no marked advance in 
conception or structure. In characterization, however, 
there is a development in various ways ; thus, a hack play 
like "The True Tragedy" has considerable power in its 
conception of a conscience-smitten villain, in "Wood- 
stock" there is clear individualization, and in Alice Arden 
and the Countess of " Edward III " female character be- 
comes lifelike and impressive. Still more salient is the 
attention paid to style. The Elizabethan theatregoer 
was used to the spoken and not to the written word, and 
expected at the theatre to be delighted by verbal display. 



SHAKESPEARE 113 

Dramatic style then had functions which have since been 
relegated to other arts. It was to be declamative, taking 
the place of oratory; descriptive, supplying in part the 
place of scenery ; and operatic in its word-play and deco- 
rative phrasing, and in its lyric interludes and laments. 
Moreover, medieval tradition and Senecan models alike 
enforced the necessity in tragedy of a heightened style; 
and many dramatists doubtless agreed with Gosson in 
placing first among dramatic requirements "sweetness 
of words, fitness of epithets with metaphors, allegories." 
Still further, along with the excesses resultant from this 
delight in words, there was manifest a growing mastery 
of language to represent truthfully situation and character. 
"Arden" gave crude expression to this reaction toward 
realism in style; "Woodstock" much more effectively; 
and colloquial directness was mingled with the artifi- 
cialities of " The Spanish Tragedy " and the beauties of 
" Edward II." Henceforth the Elizabethan drama exhib- 
its a conflict between dramatic suitability of language and 
its declamatory, operatic, or aphoristic decorativeness, 
promoting on the one hand a realistic presentation of 
life, and on the other fantastic absurdity and imaginative . 
idealism. 

The preceding discussion of Marlowe and his con- 
temporaries must have made it apparent that Shakespeare 
cannot be treated as outside of the circle, although his 
plays have for convenience been reserved until now. 
The young actor and poet learned to meet successfully 
the demands of the stage through an apprenticeship of 



114 TRAGEDY 

hack-work, collaboration, and revision, and progressed 
in his art by means of adaptation and imitation. He wrote 
in association and rivalry with his fellow playwrights, 
responding like them to theatrical fashions, and feeling 
like them the spur of current artistic impulses. The 
dramatic activity that we have been discussing bears at 
every point upon his early work. He shared both the 
limitations and the incentives, bowed to the commanding 
influences, and rose to the opportunities for initiative 
which characterize this period. His dramatic career 
probably began two or three years later than Marlowe's, 
and of the plays now to be considered several were prob- 
ably not written until the years following Marlowe's 
death. "Titus Andronicus" and the three parts of 
"Henry VI" belong to the early nineties and should be 
classed with the tragedies of blood and the chronicle his- 
tories of those years. "King John," "Richard in,"and 
"Richard II" came somewhat later and form a part of 
the more advanced development of chronicle history 
variously represented by "Edward III," "Woodstock," 
and Marlowe's " Edward II." " Romeo and Juliet," in its 
final form perhaps still later, is a great and original mas- 
terpiece, but one still very characteristic of the dramatic 
period of which it is the crown and flower. 

How much of "Titus Andronicus" is to be regarded 

as Shakespeare's remains a debated question, a recent 

and plausible theory being that it was his revision and 

combination of two old plays. ^ The play, which was 

' Harold DeW. Fuller, Publ. Mod, Lang. Assn. 1901. 



TITUS ANDRONICUS 115 

coupled by Jonson with "The Spanish Tragedy" as 
popular twenty years after its first appearance, is mainly 
an imitation of Kyd, though the phrasing and rhythm 
frequently show an advance over that author's work. 
In situations and various specific passages the imitation 
is pronounced and the motives of the Kydian type are 
in the main repeated. The revenge of a father for his son 
is opposed by villanous intrigue, involves a play within 
the play, and leads the hero into madness. Kyd's finer 
conception of a tragic hero hesitating in the face of fear- 
ful responsibility is, however, lacking; the combination 
of the two revenge stories — Tamora for her child mur- 
dered by Titus, and Titus in return for the murder of 
his children — resembles " Locrine " ; and the black 
Aaron is, like the negro-Moor in "Alcazar," one of the 
many Marlowesque villains. The play surpasses current 
revenge plays chiefly in its unapproached orgy of mutila- 
tion,*murder, and horror. 

The three parts of " Henry VI " ^ are certainly only in 
part Shakespeare's and represent the complex form of 
collaboration not infrequently found in the drama. It 
is likely that Marlowe and Greene were concerned in the 

* The collaborators on Part I (1623) are unknown, and Shakespeare's 
contribution to the present form seems likely to have been written later 
than the bulk of the play, a not very impressive example of chronicle 
history. Parts II and III (1623) exist also in the abridged and altered 
forms of the two quartos of 1594, The First Part of The Contention and 
The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York. The problems of the rela- 
tions of these two quarto plays to the folio texts are among the most 
puzzling encountered by Shakespearean scholars. 



116 TRAGEDY 

plays, and that Shakespeare's share was mainly in revision. 
The three plays were at all events very popular and occupy 
an important place among the early chronicle histories. 
The contention between the houses of York and Lan- 
caster becomes an epic theme, uniting the three parts, 
and affords manifold opportunity for battles, defiances, 
coronations, usurpations, and patriotism. The structure 
as well as the material is of the chronicle, without any 
approach to tragic unity or coherence; but the plays do 
in some ways invade the field of tragedy. Comedy is 
practically excluded except in the Cade scenes; and the 
last two parts, as their titles indicate, present a series of 
" falls of princes " — " the death of the good Duke Hum- 
phrey; And the banishment and death of the Duke of 
Suffolke, and the tragicall end of the proud cardinall of 
Winchester " and " The true Tragedie of Richard Duke 
of Yorke, and the death of good King Henry the Sixt." 
With themes of bloodshed and battle, material at least 
full of tragical possibilities, and under the schooling of 
Marlowe, Shakespeare served his apprenticeship for his- 
torical tragedy. 

In "King John" Shakespeare still followed chronicle 
history methods without any clear advance toward tragedy. 
He was engaged in rewriting the old "Troublesome 
Reign," and he followed its plot with great closeness, 
scene after scene with entrances and exits being the same 
in both plays. But here his indebtedness practically stops. 
He seems to have made out a careful scenario, following 
the old play with only such alterations and omissions as 



RICHARD III 117 

were necessary for the condensation of its two parts into 
a single play, and then to have thrown aside the old text 
and almost forgotten it. His improvements consequently 
coincide with the developments which we have found 
common in the tragedies of the period in that they concern 
characterization and style. Faulconbridge and Constance 
become incomparably more vital and impressive than in 
the old play and win our interest away from the battles 
and arguments of the rapid scenes. The style, almost 
never reminiscent of the early play, is mainly rhetorical, 
though always vigorous and usually surpassing the models 
which it frequently recalls. It often displays the conflict 
between the ornamental and naturalistic tendencies ; as, 
for example, when Arthur, facing the murderer, quibbles 
for ten lines over the red-hot iron which is to put out his 
eyes, and then, as the attendants enter, forgets his rheto- 
ric in words whose sincerity and simplicity have touched 
every reader. 

"Richard III" and "Richard II," though possibly 
earlier than " King John," show the imitator and adapter 
rather than the reviser, and represent independent efforts 
to give tragic unity to the material of the English chron- 
icles. While all the tragedies and histories so far con- 
sidered have long since proved unfitted for the stage, 
"Richard III" has maintained its first popularity and 
continued to attract the greatest actors and to win the 
liking of the patrons of the theatre of each generation. 
Yet, though it has for three centuries exercised a profound 
impression on the popular imagination, it shows in the 



118 TRAGEDY 

opinion of all critics a great indebtedness to Marlowe, 
and is so evidently imitative of current models that critics 
writing from such different points of view as Mr. Fleay 
and James Russell Lowell have been led to doubt Shake- 
speare's authorship. External and internal evidence both 
contradict such doubts emphatically, but the close rela- 
tionship of the play to " Henry VI " makes it improbable 
that Shakespeare turned to the theme solely of his own 
initiative. *' Richard III " is the fourth play of a tetralogy 
manifestly planned before the earlier members were com- 
pleted. Margaret appears in all four plays ; the character 
of Shakespeare's Richard is distinctly outlined in Part 
III; and it was evidently meant to end the contention 
of York and Lancaster with the triumph of the Tudor 
dynasty, and the long series of falls of princes with the 
tragedy of the villanous Gloster. The chronicle of 
Richard's reign had indeed been given a tragic unity in 
the history by Sir Thomas More and in a long saga of 
chronicle and literature which had developed still further 
the conception of this masterful and dreadful villain. 
The suitability of this material to current forms of tra- 
gedy was obvious. Dr. Legge had found in this saga the 
material for a Senecan play; the unknown author of 
"The True Tragedy" had discovered there a ready- 
made tragedy of blood and revenge ; and there are indica- 
tions of non-extant plays on the same theme. For either 
Marlowe or for Shakespeare working with him on the 
history of the struggle between York and Lancaster, the 
opportunity for a tragedy with a central hero of the type 



RICHARD III 119 

of Tamburlaine, Faustus, or Barabas must have been 
apparent. 

Shakespeare found in the chronicles a full-length por- 
trait of Richard and a detailed outline of the events of his 
career, while "The True Tragedy" supplied a few hints. 
His most notable omission of matter in the chronicle is 
his neglect of the pangs of conscience, dwelt on in More's 
history and made salient in "The True Tragedy," and 
suggesting such a dramatic presentation of remorse as he 
later created in "Macbeth." His most notable addition 
is the wooing of Anne, the betrothed but not the wife of 
Prince Edward, which has no historical foundation and 
is somewhat extraneous to the main action, though dra- 
matically one of the most effective scenes in the play. ^ In 
dramatizing the chronicle he manifestly followed Mar- 
lowe, making the protagonist the dominating force every- 
where in the action, and the other persons foils to set off 
the hero's villany. But he adopted only with skillful and 
essential modifications the prevailing methods of the tra- 
gedies of blood and revenge. The idea of Nemesis, made 
clear in Polydore Virgil's account of Richard, must have 
suggested a Senecan tragedy, or at least a ghost oversee- 
ing the course of the villain and finally triumphing in his 
defeat. Shakespeare, however, personified Nemesis in 
Margaret, and gave her the various functions of a super- 
vising ghost and of a chorus, — curses, laments, and exul- 

^ Somewhat similar situations between Lycus and Megaera in Her- 
cules Furens, Locrine and Estrile in Locrine, and Tamburlaine and 
Zenocrate in Tamburlaine must have been known to Shakespeare. 



120 TRAGEDY 

tations. Moreover, with a tact unique at that time and 
not displayed by him in " Titus Andronicus," he perceived 
that the presentation of many murders on the stage 
would detract from rather than add to the terror and 
horror centred in Richard, and so removed all the mur- 
ders from view excepting that of Clarence. To compensate 
in a way for this lack of stage sensation, he developed 
Richard's dream of ghosts into the highly spectacular 
presentation of the spirits of the eleven victims in their 
nocturnal appearance between the two opposing camps. 
An abundance of theatrical effects, already familiar 
on the stage, is indeed supplied. The murder of Clarence, 
with its prolonged dialogue between the murderers, the 
victims led away to execution, the orations before the 
battle, the funeral cortege, the battle scenes, the laments 
and curses, now multiplied and expanded beyond the 
verge of absurdity, all reflect current stage practices. 
The structure, still over-dependent on the chronicle 
sources, indulges after the current fashion in the reten- 
tion and prolongation of undramatic material : such as the 
feeble forebodings of the citizens (ii, 3), the prolongation 
of Hastings's warning of death (iii, 2), and the useless 
soliloquy of the scrivener (iii, 6). Yet, in comparison with 
contemporary plays, there is great superiority both in 
dramatic construction and theatrical effectiveness. The 
main action progresses with rapidity and coherence to the 
moment of Richard's reversal of fortune (iv, 4), thirteen 
years being condensed into a few days; and the interest 
from this climax to the catastrophe is maintained by 



RICHARD III 121 

startling melodramatic effects. But the great dramatic 
merit of the play lies in the use of contrast, surprise, and 
particularly of dramatic irony in the separate scenes and 
in their masterly integration to display the character of 
Richard himself. 

Following closely the character outlined in the chron- 
icle, borrowing conception and treatment from Marlowe's 
protagonists, and mindful of the host of stage villains 
that had proved so popular in tragedy, Shakespeare con- 
structed a cacodemon who remains not only a great stage 
figure but also alive and human in our imaginations. That 
he is the source of all evil in the play ; that he is absurdly 
and impossibly diabolic; that he informs the audience 
of all his nefarious schemes ; that he has a Machiavellian 
skill in intrigue ; that he is in intellect and will easily the 
superior of all whom he encounters ; that he is possessed 
by an egoism superhuman in its audacity; that he is an 
accomplished and ironical hypocrite; that he is con- 
scienceless except when half asleep and dreaming; that 
from the beginning to the end he is a masterful and relent- 
less pursuer of his ambition, uninfluenced by persons 
or events, alike subjects of his contempt, — all this indi- 
cates a skillful adaptation and continuation of sources 
and models. But Richard is more. He is dramatically 
immensely effective; he is always at hand at the right 
moment; he is never nonplussed; a murder is hardly 
over when he appears smiling and ironically repentant ; 
he can ask for strawberries with murder in his heart, or 
play with the children or woo the woman whom he has 



122 TRAGEDY 

already marked for doom. That these theatrical fascina- 
tions were the results of a consistent conception based on 
a profound ethical and psychological study can hardly 
be maintained. It may indeed be doubted whether in this 
respect there is much advance over Marlowe's villains, 
or even those of his contemporaries, to say nothing of 
an approach to Macbeth and lago. Richard is sometimes 
a human being, sometimes a monster, and always a stage 
villain. But the very fact that critics have delighted to 
analyze and moralize over his traits is proof that Shake- 
speare, in spite of the monstrosities of his conception, 
gave to its dramatic presentation not only a stage effec- 
tiveness but also plausibility. 

This plausibility must be accredited largely to the 
vigorous colloquialism of his speeches. The play mani- 
fests the usual conflict of artificial and natural styles; 
the elaborate stichomythia and the wailing and cursing 
queens furnish examples of the common affectations of 
tragic style; and the rhetorical display appears not in- 
frequently in Richard's speeches. But in the main he 
speaks with a naturalness and directness far greater than 
was usual in tragic heroes, and the natural-speaking 
Richard often makes plausible and convincing the 
theatrical and rhetorical villain. Thus, after the opening 
soliloquy he drops his rhetoric for the conversational 
tone of his conference with Clarence ; and thus, the pro- 
cession of ghosts remains still impressive on our stage 
because it is followed by a soliloquy that surpasses all 
except a few of Marlowe's in power and naturalness. 



RICHARD II 123 

Throughout the play, while others declaim, wail, and 
curse, the most impossible figure of them all becomes 
the only convincing human being, very largely because 
of the realism of his speech. 

In " Richard II," written at about the time of " Rich- 
ard III," Shakespeare was also writing under the influ- 
ence of Marlowe, but now in direct imitation and rivalry 
of " Edward II." The first part of the reign of Richard 
II had already received treatment in " Jack Straw " and 
"Woodstock," and the theme of a weak king forced to 
abdicate had been presented in "Henry VI" as well as 
"Edward II." Shakespeare followed, as always hitherto, 
his source, Holinshed, very closely, and the historical 
material determined the plot and characterization, but 
Marlowe's example led him to an interpretation of the 
fifteen years' history as the tragedy of the reversal of 
fortune of a king whose temperament made him con- 
temptible in prosperity but pitiable in adversity. Along 
with the story of the rise and progress of the conflict be- 
tween Richard and the barons under Bolingbroke, there 
runs the story of " the reluctant pangs of abdicating roy- 
alty," which give a new pathos to that favorite theme of 
medieval tragedy and Elizabethan history, the vanquish- 
ment of a prince by scornful Fortune. The struggle 
within Richard's own -heart, even more than in the case 
of Edward II, absorbs the interest and points the moral, 
the hollowness and uncertainty of earthly grandeur. 

Structurally there is no advance on "Edward II" in 
exposition, integration of action, or catastrophe. Ad- 



124 TRAGEDY 

herence to the chronicle results in a long drawn out and 
iterative first act, a virtual repetition of Richard's 
struggle over the relinquishment of the crown in iii, 3, 
and iv, 1, and a slight and melodramatic treatment of the 
catastrophe. On the other hand, there are some changes 
from Marlowe's method of interest in connection with 
later tragedy. Elegiac scenes with their lamenting wo- 
men, also conspicuous in "Richard III," are an addition 
to the historical source and an important factor in the 
structure; their distribution through the play indicating 
that they were employed to supply a relief from the 
scenes of much action and high tension, more suitable 
to tragedy than the relief of comic scenes, and also to 
take, as in " Richard III," the place of a chorus through 
their lyrical reinforcement of the tragic emotions excited 
by the action. Again, as the theme is Richard's reversal 
of fortune rather than his death, so the emotional crisis 
receives a structural prominence not unlike that given 
to Hamlet's, and the catastrophe of death is relegated to 
a postscript. The passage from crisis to catastrophe is 
managed, as in "Hamlet," "Lear," and '* Macbeth," by 
the introduction of incidents extraneous to the main 
action, here the episode of Aumerle's conspiracy. 

The main departures from Marlowe, however, are to 
be found in those elements of dramatic composition to 
which in this period the genius of Shakespeare as well as 
the talent of his contemporaries most readily responded, 
the characterization and the style. Not only the king 
himself but many other persons in the play, and notably 



RICHARD II 125 

Bolingbroke, are presented with consistency and subtlety. 
The historical narrative is transformed into a gallery of 
full-length historical portraits that lead us to forget his- 
tory and drama in our study of their personalities. The 
euphuistic and sentimental Richard gives a fair field for 
the stylist, but his example is infectious, and the Queen, 
Gaunt, York, Bolingbroke, the gardener, and in fact all 
the persons of the drama, employ word-play, periphrasis, 
and the various flourishes of Elizabethan rhetorical style. 
If one accepts the theory that tragedy is a game for 
rhetorical display, and further accepts the convention- 
alities of Elizabethan style, there must be unmeasured 
admiration for the extraordinary verbal skill displayed. 
Shakespeare employs the current artificialities of diction 
with abounding facility and zest, and often suits them 
skillfully to the delineation of character ; while his constant 
attention to expression results in a sustained eloquence, 
which, if it blurs the outlines of reality, substitutes a haze 
of fancy, and sometimes the glory of magnificent beauty. 
The miserable years of Richard's downfall are forever 
associated in our minds with the picturesqueness of the 
two entries into London and with the splendor of the 
apostrophe to England and the recital of Norfolk's death. 
In the three chronicle histories just considered, although 
the historical material largely determines structure, tragic 
conception, and characterization, and although all these 
are obviously under Marlowe's influence, yet Shakespeare 
had reached a stage far more advanced than that of mere 
imitator or adapter. In " Richard III " he had added his 



126 TRAGEDY 

own impress to the Marlowean type of tragedy, and in 
" Richard II " he had introduced innovations foreshadow- 
ing his later conceptions. As a playwright he had equaled 
any of his contemporaries in immediate popularity and 
outdone them in permanent theatrical effectiveness. He 
had acquired a complete mastery over the conditions and 
conventions of the stage, and had frequently, if not always, 
outdone the best of his rivals in dramatic ingenuity and 
power. Like his contemporaries, however, he was ham- 
pered by theatrical conditions and intractable historical 
material; and his chief interest was in the opportunities 
furnished by the chronicles for the delineation of char- 
acter and the exercise of his gift of tongues. In range and 
verisimilitude his characters already far surpassed Mar- 
lowe's; and as a poet, whether in lyric, descriptive, or 
purely dramatic passages, whether in sustained treatment 
of situation or in splendid purple patches, he had shown 
himself the peer of his master. 

In " Romeo and Juliet " the same dramatic and poetic 
qualities are exhibited as in the historical plays, but the 
happy choice of the already well-known love story led 
Shakespeare outside of the direct range of Marlowe's 
example, freed him from the limits of the historical mate- 
rial, and gave his genius full scope. The importance of 
love as a motive in the Italian drama of the Renaissance 
is one of the traits that distinguish it from its classical 
models, and the influence of Italian drama and fiction 
was important in turning Elizabethan dramatists to stories 
of romantic passion. These had already been widely 



ROMEO AND JULIET 127 

adopted in comedy and had formed the principle plots of 
"Tancred and Gismunda" and "Soliman and Perseda," 
as well as minor parts in other tragedies of the period. 
The story of Romeo and Juliet, which Brooke speaks of 
having seen " lately (1562) set forth on the stage with more 
commendation than I can look for, " may have been made 
into an English play before Shakespeare was born.^ It 
had at least been dramatized in France and Italy, where 
Luigi Groto's "Adriana" (1578) surpassed all contem- 
porary plays in the number of its editions. 

Brooke's poem, "Romeus and Juliet" (1562), was the 
main source of the play and provided a story eminently 
adapted to dramatic representation. The plot, with its 
conflict between love and hate, the brief triumph of love, 
the interference of feud and family authority, the sepa- 
ration and death of the lovers, has been repeated in its 
essentials in thousands of stories, and has played an enor- 
mous part in the imaginations of four centuries ; but it has 
hardly found a more effective scenario than that which 
lay imbedded in Brooke's long-spun narrative. A lesser 
genius than Shakespeare might have discovered it, but 
his powers of invention and construction are amply appar- 
ent, especially up to the turning-point of the play. The 
brawl and the love-sick Romeo of the first scene, dramat- 
ically expository and symbolic of the whole action, the 
meeting of the lovers at the dance, the balcony scene, 
the embassy and return of the nurse, the fatal fight with 

^ See H. DeW. Fuller, " Romeo and Julietta," Modern Philology, 1906. 
It seems clear, however, that Shakespeare drew directly from Brooke. 



128 TRAGEDY 

Tybalt, are all executed with a wealth of incidental 
invention, a sureness of technic, and a rapidity and di- 
rectness of dramatic movement that relied but little on 
Brooke's narrative or contemporary example. The 
second half of the play, though skillfully condensed, fol- 
lows the source more closely and, perhaps for this reason, 
impresses the modern reader less vividly. Shakespeare's 
dramatic skill is manifest in his departure from the cur- 
rent methods of the tragedy of blood as well as in his 
treatment of the narrative. What imitators of Seneca and 
of Kyd did with similar love stories we have seen in 
" Tancred and Gismunda " and " Soliman and Perseda " ; 
and " Romeo and Juliet " had an equal chance for ghosts, 
villany, and physical horrors. Some traces of the pre- 
vailing fashion do survive, as in the addition to Brooke 
of the murder of Paris and in the attention paid to the 
horrors of the tomb. But many of the best scenes are of 
the sort that occur in romantic comedy, — the repartee 
of gallants, the preparations for a feast, the dance, the 
street affray, the meetings and partings of the lovers, — 
and there is no villain, no figure of Nemesis, no ghost, 
no warring armies, and no pomp of courts. No tragedy 
had yet appeared with less theatrical sensationalism, and 
none which maintained the interest of the spectators 
upon the story with comparable dramatic intensity. 

The extraordinary advance over the historical plays 
in dramatic technic is, however, overshadowed in our 
appreciation of the play by the irresistible appeal made 
by the persons of the story. They are more closely 



ROMEO AND JULIET 129 

realized for us than the friends and foes of our daily life, 
yet they dwell forever in the enchantment of idealized 
romance. To analyze Shakespeare's power to portray 
and at the same time to exalt human nature would be to 
unlock the very key to Shakespeare's heart ; we may well 
be content to wonder and exclaim. Yet, we may note 
that, while characterization, which had been increasing 
in range and individualization in the historical plays, 
is here triumphant, the means and methods are not un- 
like those already noticed. The brilliant translation of 
prose narrative into monologue and dialogue gives us 
the nurse; the vivacious amplification of a type familiar 
in comedy — the garrulous old man — results in Capu- 
let ; and even the greatest creations naturally retain traces 
of contemporary influences. Mercutio is the prince of a 
throng of quick-witted quibblers, and Juliet is sometimes 
declamatory, sometimes fantastic, like Brooke's heroine. 
But they are Shakespeare's own, and the first representa- 
tives of two ways in which his imagination characteris- 
tically and supremely manifested itself in later plays. 
Mercutio is the first of those imaginative achievements 
that concentrate into a few lines of blank verse the com- 
plete individualization of a human being; Juliet is per- 
haps the first of the amazing series of idealized women. If 
one considers how often the young girl in love has been the 
theme of genius, and recalls Fielding, Scott, Browning, and 
Meredith, one may secure some measure of Shakespeare's 
achievement. When one seeks comparison with the naive 
and likable young animal of Brooke's doggerel, or the 



130 TRAGEDY 

women of preceding drama, even the charming heroines 
of Greene's comedies, the art that produced Juhet must 
seem miraculous. The ideahzation of woman was, to 
be sure, common in Renaissance art ; and the union in her 
of wit and beauty, power and charm, passion and purity, 
innocence and wisdom, was not solely Shakespeare's 
conception ; but the power to conceive such a being with 
truth and to realize her dramatically, alive, human, and 
consistent, was his alone. 

The conception and expression of character cannot 
be separated; there lies in the qualities of the poetic 
style some explanation of the impression we receive of 
idealized humanity. While colloquial directness is not 
wanting in the play, the prevailing style has the artifi- 
cialities, the lyricism, and the exuberance we have found 
prevailing elsewhere. It exhibits about all the faults 
and affectations of the dramatic poetry of the time, but 
these are the defects of an art that finds poetry in every- 
thing.and ever lingers to enjoy the beauty of words, whether 
over Qu^en Mab, or the apothecary's shop, or Friar 
Laurence's herbs. It stops to display its verbal inge- 
nuity in a pun; it delights in lyric outbursts, sestette or 
sonnet, morning-song oregithalamium; it riots in the re- 
frains on " banished," becofecs grotesque in the wailing 
quartette, and finds its supreme opportunity in the fancy 
and music and passion of the lovers underneath the sum- 
mer moon. It is this exuberance, this spontaneity, this 
carelessness of incongruity, this delight in ornamentation, 
this abandon to music and fancy that transfigures the 



ROMEO AND JULIET 131 

Verona of brawls, dinners, nurses, and deaths, and, for- 
ever ascendant over our fancies, like Romeo's blessed 
moon, "tips everything with silver." 

It is in part this poetic style which distinguishes the 
play from the later tragedies, but the difference is 
everywhere manifest to our impressions. The evil and 
gloom and pessimism that help to make up the tragic fact 
in "Lear" and "Macbeth" are here scarcely felt. To 
joy comes sorrow, because of evil and through accident, 
— this is the tragic theme. In the course of its presenta- 
tion one may find it suggestive of the passing of youth 
to age or of passionate love to oblivion, but surely no 
one comes from the poem with a dominant impression 
of the wickedness of family feuds, or of the inevitable 
brevity of romantic passion, or of the dangers of youthful 
precipitousness, — rather the mind glows with the beauty 
and joy revealed in life. 

In this impression the play has a kinship with the trage- 
dies, even the poor and the maimed, that had preceded 
it. Tragedies so far have been strangely free from Chris- 
tian teaching or sentiment. Compared with the medieval 
drama, early Elizabethan tragedy seems not only sec- 
V ular but pagan. This is partly because it followed its 
sources and treated of Romans, Moors, Scythians, and 
heroes of myths and legends; partly because it derived 
stoic and fatalistic sentiments from Seneca and other clas- 
sical writers; but it also represents an entire departure 
from the medieval point of view, a departure necessarily 
emphasized in tragedy. In the medieval drama, death 



132 TRAGEDY 

^^ 

had been a translation to final reward or punishment, 

— the portals of heaven and hell were open on the stage. 
In the Renaissance conception of tragedy death was 
the point and pith of tragic fact. Faith, forgiveness, 
reliance on Providence, assurance of immortality are 
rarely alluded to. Chance, mysterious fate, the emis- 
saries of the devil, the powers of evil in the mind of man 
are the forces to which tragedy must attend; and they 
lead to a death terrible and pitiful, to be met bravely and 
defiantly, it may be, but not peacefully and hopefully. 
And this emphasis of the gloom of death required an equal 
emphasis on the glory and beauty of life. Tragedy was 
the passing into darkness from under this majestic roof 
fretted with golden fire, the loss of noble reason and 
infinite faculty; and it must needs proclaim the beauty 
of the world as well as the quintessence of dust. 

And so, although writers of tragedy dwelt on the hor- 
rors of death and its accompaniments of blood and atro- 
city, and though they symbolized in their villains their 
sense of the reign of evil, yet, in Marlowe's treatment 
of an Asiatic conqueror or the ignoble fascination of 
Edward II, or in Peele's fancy that made musical the 
amours of David; everywhere indeed, in the Pantheas 
and Persedas, the Marii and Selimi, they were presenting 
human life as removed from the commonplace, the sor- 
did, the usual, and as the abode of heroisms, splendors, 
and aspirations. Even evil deeds and villains, even death 
itself sometimes partook of this glorification; and tragic 
theory, moral purpose, and theological dogma were alike 



ROMEO AND JULIET 133 

forgotten in the fascination of human character, passion, 
and achievement. This ideahzation of Hfe was, as we 
noted at the beginning of the chapter, characteristic of 
the national temper and of the artistic impulses in every 
field of literature during its brief breathing spell between 
the Protestant and Puritan revolutions. Its power is 
curiously illustrated in the effect of the story of Romeo 
and Juliet upon Brooke in the course of his by no means 
despicable attempt to turn it into a tragic poem. In his 
Address to the Reader, he dilates with medieval pro- 
priety on the moral of the poem " to raise in the reader 
an hatefuU lothyng of so filthy beastlynes." "And to 
this ende (good Reader) is this tragicall matter written to 
describe unto thee a coople of unfortunate lovers thralling 
themselves to unhonest desire, neglecting the authorite 
and advice of parents and frendes, conferring their 
principall counsels with dronken gossyppes, and super- 
stitious friers (the naturally fitte instrumentes of unchas- 
titie " — and so on through all their evil doings until 
" finallye, by all meanes of unhonest lyfe hastyng to most 
unhappye death." So wrote the conscious Puritan; but 
the story charmed the artist. It enticed his meagre art 
to a share in the joys of the lovers, it led him to a delight 
in unhonest life, it dissolved his sermon into romance 
and poetry, and left him enamored even of his "super- 
stitious frier." 

And so the tragedy of the lovers became for Shake- 
speare as for Brooke and as other stories had become for 
Marlowe, Peele, and Greene, the spur and the means to 



134 TRAGEDY 

an idealization of life. It is not in the reconciliation of 
the families, still less in the sense of a deserved punish- 
ment, that we find an antidote for death and evil ; but in 
the assurance that human passion may be so lovely, 
human nature so full of strength and beauty. " The sun 
for sorrow will not show his head," says Prince Escalus 
at the end, but we believe with Romeo that 

" Jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ward, Fleay, and Schelling are the best general guides for this period. 
The books already mentioned by Collier, Symonds, Jusserand, Cunliffe, 
Fischer, and Churchill bear directly on the matter of this chapter. 
The sources for documents and records are the same as for chapter iii, 
with the important addition of Henslowe's Diary, vol. i, 1904, ed. by 
W. W. Greg. The sources for lists of plays and bibliography are the 
same as in chapter ii, — Greg, Fleay, Hazlitt, Schelling, and Bates. 
There is no satisfactory and comprehensive treatment of Marlowe's 
work; J. H. Ingram's Christopher Marlowe and his Associates (1904) 
supplies a full bibliography. Marlowe has been well edited by Dyce 
and by A. H. Bullen. Dyce's editions of Greene and Peele have long 
been standard. Bullen has also a good edition of Peele. The recent 
Clarendon Press editions of Greene, Lyly, Kyd supply careful texts 
and full introductions. My article. The Relations of "Hamlet" to 
Contemporary Revenge Plays (Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 1902), has 
been drawn upon for the discussion of Kyd; it furnishes references 
to the various critical discussions of Kyd's work. Texts of the plays 
by minor writers are to be found in Dodsley; W. C. Hazlitt's Shake- 
speare's Library (6 vols., 1875), containing old plays and other sources 
for Shakespeare's plays; Delius, Pseudo-Shakspere' sche Dramen (1874) ; 
the Tauchnitz edition of Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare ; and in 
the editions of several of the pseudo-Shakespearean plays by K. 
Warncke and L. Proescholdt, Halle. This last edition of Arden of 
Fever sham contains a valuable introduction. For direction to the' 
bibliography of Shakespeare, see chapter v. On the Henry VI plays. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 135 

Miss Jane Lee's paper. New Shaks. Soc. Transactions, 1875-76, still 
offers the most exhaustive treatment of the question of authorship. On 
Titus Andronicus, Mr. Harold DeW. Fuller's article, Mod. Lang. 
Publ. (1901), and Mr. J. M. Robertson's Did Shakespeare write Titus 
Andronicus f (1905) are among the latest discussions. My review of 
Mr. Robertson's book, Journal of Eng. and Germ. Philology (1907), 
treats in detail some of the discussion of this chapter. The latest studies 
of the Elizabethan theatre are C. Brodmeier's Die Shakespeare- Buhne 
(Weimar, 1904), which reduces the "alternation" theory to an absurdity, 
and G. F. Reynold's Some Principles of Elizabethan Staging (Chicago, 
1905), which disposes of Brodmeier's theories, but goes a little too far in 
the other direction. See, also. Baker's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist 
for a careful and detailed account of the London theatres. Miss V. C. 
Gildersleeve's Governmental Regulation of the Shakespearean Drama 
(Columbia Univ. Studies in English, in press) is an exhaustive treat- 
ment of its subject and incidentally throws light on theatrical matters. 
Volume iv of Courthope's History of English Poetry is on the "Develop- 
ment and Decline of the Poetic Drama," from Marlowe to 1642. 
Schelling's The English Chronicle Play (1902) is the best discussion of 
this species. W. Bang's series, Maierialien zur Kunde des dlteren eng- 
lischen Dramas, includes reprints and studies of interest in connection 
with this and the three following chapters. 




CHAPTER V 

SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

FTER "Richard II" and "King John," 
Shakespeare turned aside from tragedy, and 
within the next half-dozen years produced his 
masterpieces of romantic comedy and non- 
tragical history. With the exception of " Titus Androni- 
cus" and "Romeo and Juliet," the first half of his 
dramatic career was devoted entirely to comedy and his- 
tory. With " Julius Csesar," about 1600, began the period 
of tragedies and bitter comedies, which lasted until about 
1608, when he turned again to romantic comedy and 
tragicomedy. In these main divisions and turning-points 
of his dramatic activity there is a correspondence with 
the development of the contemporary drama which we 
are able to mark with an approach to definiteness. Both 
romantic comedy and chronicle history had their hey- 
day during the dozen years that he was devoting to those 
species. Then at the close of the century various influ- 
ences produced an abandonment of those forms, a 
revival of tragedy, and an extensive production of satirical 
and domestic comedy. About 1608, again, the plays of 
Beaumont and Fletcher led a return to romance. The 
Shakespearean period of tragedy may thus be separated 
from the Marlowean by an interval, during which few 



CHANGES IN THE DRAMA 137 

tragedies of importance appeared ; and its beginning was 
coincident with new and important developments in the 
drama. 

The leading force in initiating these changes was appar- 
ently Ben Jonson, whose prologue to " Every Man in His 
Humour" (acted 1598) avowed the principles which that 
play exemplified, and proclaimed the establishment of 
a comedy of humors. This change was heralded as the 
result of a more critical and conscious art, of a desire 
to free the drama from the absurdities and lawlessness 
of the past, and to supply it with literary standards and 
artistic aims. His practice, which during the next ten 
years was mostly in accord with his preaching, was fol- 
lowed or paralleled in many respects by most of the 
other dramatists. At the date of " Every Man in His 
Humour" Shakespeare was proclaiming in the choruses 
of " Henry V " his sense of the incongruities of the chron- 
icle history play and bidding farewell to a form of drama 
that he had made preeminently his own ; and Chapman 
and Middleton were forsaking romantic comedy for 
realistic comedies of London life. Perhaps a little ear- 
lier, the satires of Donne, Hall, and Marston had created 
considerable stir and doubtless had a share in turning 
literary endeavor from sentiment to satire. This satire 
and exposure of the follies and evils of society also re- 
ceived encouragement from the moral and social change 
that was working in England and especially in London. 
The healthy and aspiring national life that had found 
ex])ression in the sound morality and the imaginative 



138 TRAGEDY 

idealism of the earlier drama was now giving place to 
the moral corruption, social laxity, and lack of national 
pride that render the reign of James I notorious. At all 
events, whatever the causes, the comedy of the next seven 
or eight years was prevailingly realistic, domestic, or 
satirical. 

In tragedy the changes were similar, though less dis- 
tinct. The protest against the lawlessness of the early 
drama was manifested in the infrequency of chronicle 
plays and the appearance of tragedies presenting foreign, 
and especially Roman, history with due regard for both 
historical truth and tragic structure. Realism appeared 
^ust at the beginning of the century in a number of 
/domestic tragedies that violated the established conven- 
j tions by dealing with actual events, contemporary society, 
land humble persons. Satire of contemporary manners 
became frequent in tragedy, and satirical comedies often 
dealt with tragic events and exercised an influence on 
pure tragedy similar to that exercised by romantic com- 
edy in the earlier period. Up to this time popular tra- 
gedy had hardly received critical consideration even from 
the dramatists themselves. Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, 
and others had been mainly concerned in telling stories 
on the stage without much consciousness of theory or of 
the types of drama which they were creating. In this 
period, however, the demarcation between tragedy and 
comedy and the definition of a conception of tragedy 
became positive both in occasional critical comment and 
in the practice of the dramatists. The old types, how- 



CHANGES IN THE DRAMA 139 

ever, survived. Medleys of various kinds of tragedy and 
comedy, such as " Old Fortunatus " or " The Downfall 
and Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon," are not found 
much after the beginning of the century ; but the revenge 
tragedy received a remarkable development by Marston, 
Chettle, Tourneur, Chapman, and Jonson, to say nothing 
of Shakespeare. 

/Practically synchronous with the period of Shake- 
ppeare's great tragedies are these several interesting 
Idevelopments : the domestic tragedies, and especially 
the allied work of Heywood ; the Roman historical trage- 
dies, especially the two by Jonson ; the French historical 
tragedies by Chapman; and the various revenge plays, 
beginning withMarston's "Antonio and Mellida." These 
dramatists, however, were mainly occupied with comedy, 
and no one of them devoted himself as exclusively to 
tragedy as did Shakespeare. Nor did any of them equal 
him in immediate popularity. The imitative methods 
of his artistic apprenticeship had given place to a 
maturity and independence of art that at once won a 
supremacy in tragedy even greater than that already 
attained in comedy. Yet in themes and treatment there 
is no divorce from the practice of his fellow dramatists. 
His genius continued responsive to the demands of the 
stage of the day, and it felt the changes in dramatic con- 
ditions, of which we have been noticing some symptoms, 
and which made the tragedies of others as well as his 
own more satirical and realistic than those of Marlowe's 
time, more concerned with the problem of evil, more 



140 TRAGEDY 

conscious and critical in their art, and in their style less 
lyrical and descriptive, more reflective and sententious. 
Of the domestic tragedies, very much in fashion from 
1597 to 1603, the few survivors show little advance over 
"Arden of Feversham." These presentations of hideous 
contemporary crimes maintain the protest initiated by 
that play against the conventionalities of " the ghost and 
revenge" drama, and echo its demand for realism. The 
satirical description of Tragedy in the induction to "A 
Warning for Fair Women" (1599) is particularly note- 
worthy as indicating the definiteness which the current 
conception of tragedy had assumed. The epilogue reiter- 
ates the cry of the realist in an era of romanticism : — 

" Perhaps it may seem strange unto you all. 
That one hath not avenged another's death 
After the observation of such course: 
The reason is that now of truth I sing." 

A second of these plays, "Two Lamentable Tragedies" 
(1601), is a curious combination of the story of the babes 
in the wood and that of the recent murder of one Beech. 
A third, "A Yorkshire Tragedy,'* acted by Shakespeare's 
company about 1605, and published with his name (1608), 
is remarkable for its naked realism and the vividness and 
rapidity of some of its prose. 

With these plays may be grouped Heywood's "A 
Woman Killed with Kindness" (1607, acted 1603), for, 
although it does not deal with real events, it lacks the 
usual accompaniments of tragedy, courts, kings, ghosts, 
and battles, and presents a story of current English life. 



HEYWOOD 141 

Its themes are the common ones of adultery and revenge, 
but it gives them an entirely novel treatment, the husband 
i refusing to take vengeance on his guilty wife, who dies 
/ repentant and forgiven. After a fashion soon to become 
general, there is an underplot which, like the main plot, 
presents a problem of social ethics, the question of the 
sacrifice of chastity to save a brother's honor. Similar 
problems are common in contemporary comedy, and 
the play might be classed indifferently as a domestic 
tragedy or a tearful comedy. It is Heywood's masterpiece 
and exemplifies the qualities that won him the affection 
of Lamb, " generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depth 
of passion, sweetness, in a word, and gentleness." The 
wife falls too easily and repents too sentimentally to be 
of much interest, but the character of Frankfort is finely 
conceived and, especially in the great scene of the dis- 
covery, executed with a power and truth of feeling rarely 
combined outside of Shakespeare. In a very similar play, 
" The English Traveller," written long afterwards, Hey- 
wood speaks of two hundred and twenty plays in which 
he had a main finger. Some of these lost plays must 
have further exemplified the method of "A Woman 
Killed with Kindness"; but his success failed to en- 
/ courage other dramatists to attempt domestic themes 
and to abandon the tragic conventions. Such realism 
as his was left to comedy, and tragedy continued to seek 
its stories in romance or history. 

Ben Jonson's two tragedies, " Sejanus " and " Catiline," 
reveal an effort to treat Roman history with accuracy 



142 TRAGEDY 

and dignity, and to enforce on the public stage what he 
regarded as the essential rules of tragedy. Such repre- 
sentations of Roman history as "The Wounds of Civil 
War" or the still more incongruous medley of Hey- 
wood's " Lucrece " must have excited in him still greater 
condemnation than did the English chronicle plays. 
Even Shakespeare's "Julius Csesar" provoked a sneer, 
though its dramatization of Plutarch's portraits of the 
great conspirators apparently excited his emulation and 
suggested much in his treatment of Sejanus and Catiline. 
Incongruous spectacle and farce disappear from these 
plays, and the events are treated upon a well thought out 
theory of historical tragedy. Jonson strove to present 
the main events and characters with accurate fidelity to 
authorities, and even minor persons and deeds in con- 
stant harmony with the historical narrative. But the 
scholar overtopped the dramatist. "Sejanus" has a 
paraphernalia of notes like a doctor's dissertation; and 
" Catiline " long excerpts from Cicero's orations. 

His plays, however, were intended for the public 
stage, and are by no means to be classed with closet 
dramas like Daniel's " Philotas," the tragedies of Fulke 
Greville and Alexander, or the earlier translations of 
Kyd and the Countess of Pembroke. Jonson started with 
current popular forms, with "Julius Csesar" rather than 
the Senecan models for a basis. His purpose was to 
rebuild these, not without some recognition of current 
dramatic method, but with his main reliance upon classi- 
cal rules. His cardinal error was his acceptance of the 



BEN JONSON 143 

current classical theory of tragedy, the belief that the 
essential difference between epic and dramatic fable lay 
in the observance of the three unities and similar pro- 
prieties. As he was forced to confess, the ambitious 
careers of Sejanus and Catiline and the style of action 
demanded by the audiences of the day did not lend them- 
selves easily to such limitations. But he persevered in his 
doughty fashion. If in " Sejanus " he gave up the unity of 
time, he maintained the unity of place ; if he retained the 
comic scenes of the courtesan, he avoided any grotesque 
mixture of the comic and tragic ; he omitted battles, jigs, 
and spectacles, and secured a coherent development of 
the main action. In "Catiline," which he boldly pro- 
claimed a "dramatic poem," he adopted the Senecan 
technic of an introductory ghost and a segregated chorus. 
But though the action be one, perfect and entire, accord- 
ing to Jonson's understanding of those terms, he never 
learned Shakespeare's art of focusing events about a 
spiritual conflict. 

Yet in characterization Jonson's interest, like that of 
his contemporaries, largely centres. Catiline, Cicero, 
Sejanus, and Tiberius are thoughtfully conceived and 
faithfully represented. The representation, indeed, is that 
of exposition, each scene illustrating and emphasizing 
some trait without securing much illusion of life. The 
style, especially in the long speeches, is too often rhetori- 
cal, and rarely displays great beauty or dramatic power. 
Yet it is masterly in its way, careful and competent to 
its purposes, and free from obscurity or over-richness. 



144 TRAGEDY 

His plays mark another failure to turn popular tragedy 
back into the classical mould. They contributed, per- 
haps, to a greater regularity of action on the part of 
his contemporaries and to a more serious consideration 
of the functions of drama, but the scholarly student of 
history failed to make it live, the author of " Bartholomew 
Fair " did not find his best opportunity in the acceptance 
of classicist theory. 

Chapman's tragedies attempted a field hitherto un- 
tried except in Marlowe's "Massacre," that of contem- 
porary French history. While treating historical events 
with freedom of invention, he dealt with real persons and 
careers familiar to his audience. In the long-popular 
tragedy of "The Death of Bussy D'Ambois" (1607, 
acted 1600-1604) he turned to the court of Henry IH 
and centred a story of treasonable ambition, conspiracy, 
and adultery about the interesting personality of the in- 
solent and indomitable D'Ambois. After the fashion of 
Kyd and Marston, he followed " The Death " with a " Re- 
venge of Bussy D'Ambois," which adopted the established 
technic of the revenge plays, with less alteration than 
might have been expected after Shakespeare's trans- 
formation in " Hamlet." The avenger, Clermont, is a 
" Senecal man," and his sententious and rhetorical phi- 
losophizing was doubtless incited by "Hamlet," though 
it followed a long-established precedent. The " Conspir- 
acy and Tragedy of Byron " (two parts, 1608, acted 1607) 
dealt with important affairs in the reign of Henry IV 
that were still fresh in the memory of the audience, 



CHAPMAN 145 

Biron having been executed in 1602. In the original 
form of the play, in fact, Queen Elizabeth was repre- 
sented, and the French queen boxed the ears of her hus- 
band's mistress, but the protest of the French ambassador 
made a revision necessary. 

The new material of these plays did not lead Chapman 
to attempt any variations in form from the current drama, 
nor did it result in any advance in method ; his fondness 
for long speeches and narrations resulting rather in a 
treatment more epical and less dramatic than is found 
in any of his contemporaries. Nor did his study of con- 
temporary memoirs for his sources and his interest in 
political philosophy result in any advance in reality or 
vividness of characterization, though here he is often very 
felicitous, as in his portrait of Henry IV, and though his 
arrogant protagonists are interesting and original varia- 
tions of the Marlowean tragic hero, not without succes- 
sors in the later drama. But for Chapman, tragedy was 
in the main, as for the writers whom Gosson derided, an 
opportunity " to show the majesty of his pen in tragical 
speeches." The abundance, ingenuity, and beauty of his 
figurative language are simply amazing. Every person, 
deed, or sentiment calls for illustration and lets loose 
a flood of similes. Finished verse, a highly picturesque 
sense of the value of words, a remarkable union of preg- 
nant sententiousness with vividness of description, have 
made his plays the delight of many a reader, though 
perhaps most of his admirers have experienced a fatigue 
that found satisfaction in Dryden's peryerse criticism. 



146 TRAGEDY 

"dwarfish thought dressed up in gigantic words, repe- 
tition in abundance, looseness of expression, and gross 
hyperboles." For, though the thought is by no means 
dwarfish, the dress is often too big for it. We are wearied 
by the constant effort to write up to the tragic oppor- 
tunity for a heightened and sententious eloquence. In 
this respect. Chapman's style partakes of the faults of 
his day. It has not the spontaneity and ease of Mar- 
lowe, Peele, and "Romeo and Juhet"; it is difficult, 
involved, pretentious, and self-conscious, yet its splendors 
remain. Its abundance of resource, its imaginative con- 
densation, its suggestive power again and again compel 
comparison with Shakespeare himself. 

Revenge directed by a ghost found favor with both 
Jonson and Chapman, but they were preceded in the use 
of this popular motive by John Marston. In 1598, at the 
age of twenty-three, he made something of a sensation 
by his satires and immediately proceeded to carry his 
censoriousness of human frailties into the drama. His 
earliest play, " Antonio and Mellida " (two parts, 1602, 
acted 1599-1600), reveals in Part I the still dominant 
influence of romantic comedy, despite its tragic trend; 
but Part II, "Antonio's Revenge," is a tragedy of the 
Kydian type. The play was followed by a number of 
comedies, all outspoken in satite of contemporary man- 
ners and in the exposure of social immorality. Several 
dealt with tragic material, and one, "The Malcontent," 
is a notable combination of a tragedy of blood and a 
satirical comedy. Its protagonist is of a type represented 



MARSTON 147 

in the other comedies and not without influence on con- 
temporary dramatists. Marston's malcontents are men 
of virtue and honor " who hate not man but man's lewd 
qualities " ; in disfavor and out of joint with the world ; 
given to melancholy and a showy pessimism that finds 
fitting expression only in images of filth and putrefaction. 
His tragedy "Sophonisba" (1606), which he seems to 
have deemed the most important of his plays, treats 
history with great freedom, and unites melodramatic 
horrors with his usual unflinching fondness for rank- 
ness of thought and imagery. The horrible realism of the 
Erichtho scenes comes in strange contrast w^ith the 
songs, dances, and musical accompaniment suited to a 
performance by the child actors for whom all of Mar- 
ston's plays were written. 

"Antonio's Revenge" is the earliest representative in 
this period of the Kydian type of revenge tragedy. The 
satirical passages in "A Warning for Fair Women" in- 
dicate the popularity of ghosts and revenge, and there 
are many evidences of the continued vogue of **The 
Spanish Tragedy" from 1597 to 1602. Marston's play 
was evidently modeled on "The Spanish Tragedy," 
and probably still more directly on the Kydian "Ham- 
let." The story is the revenge of a son for a father mur- 
dered by a villanous duke who seeks to wed the hero's 
mother; the revenge is directed by the ghost of the 
father; the hero is driven to hesitation, irresolution, and 
the verge of madness ; he pretends to be a fool ; intrigue 
and trickery are indulged in by both hero and villain. 



148 TRAGEDY 

and the revenge is accomplished with an abundance of 
bloodshed. There is a minor story of revenge, enforcing 
the main situation as does the Laertes story in "Ham- 
let" and the scene with the Senex in "The Spanish 
Tragedy"; and, doubtless as in the early "Hamlet," 
the passion of the murderer for the widow of his victim 
now becomes an important motive in the action. More- 
over, the play abounds in psychological introspection 
and meditative philosophy set forth for the most part 
through the soliloquies of the hero. 

The indebtedness to the earlier revenge plays extends 
to details of the stage presentation. Revenge is accom- 
plished much as in "The Spanish Tragedy," though by 
means of a masque instead of a play, and without the 
death of the hero. From similar scenes in the old "Ham- 
let" were probably derived the appearance of the ghost 
at midnight, the cry "Antonio, revenge !" and the second 
appearance of the ghost to the hero and his mother. 
The dumb show exhibiting the wooing of Maria, the 
use of the churchyard, the banquets, carousals, funerals, 
exhibition of the dead bodies, and the oaths of the 
conspirators were perhaps already conventional accom- 
paniments of a revenge play. "Antonio's Revenge," 
however, is not wanting in inventiveness; its abundant 
horrors and its melodramatically ingenious stage effects 
were probably recognized as an advance upon the old 
favorites, and they excited the emulation of succeeding 
dramatists. 

The hero, too, is of the Kydian type. Like both Hiero- 



MARSTON 149 

nimo and Hamlet, he is a scholar, interested in philoso- 
phy and also in theatrical performances. Like them he 
is distinguished by a tendency to reflection, and strug- 
gles in solitary meditation at each crisis in his career. 
Like them he is driven to the verge of madness by the 
pressure of his heavy responsibility and by his awakened 
sense of evil in the universe. Though he does not seek 
further proof, yet, like Hamlet after the revelations of 
the play, he becomes frantic and irresolute, neglects an 
opportunity to kill the duke, and wastes his vengeance 
upon an innocent child. Like Hieronimo and Hamlet, 
he is tricky, wild, and ranting. With all his overdrawn 
passion, however, his mental struggle occasionally attains 
intellectual depth and tragic power. As he tells us, it was 
"the stings of anguish," "the bruising stroke of chance" 
which made him run mad "as one confounded in a maze 
of mischief." 

Several years, then, before Shakespeare's "Hamlet," 
we have a play dealing with the old story of a revenge of 
a son for a father, following closely the methods intro- 
duced by Kyd, appealing to a taste that delighted in 
extravagant violence and melodramatic sensationalism, 
but also striving to simulate profundity of thought and 
a passionate sense of evil. It is difficult to-day to take 
Marston seriously. His plays have little merit, while his 
bombastic sententiousness gives an air of insincerity to 
everything that he wrote ; yet a serious purpose and a con- 
siderable influence on later drama cannot be denied to 
his efforts in tragedy. Like so many others, he deserves 



150 TRAGEDY 

to be remembered for what he attempted rather than 
for what he did. Absurd though "Antonio's Revenge" 
be as an artistic achievement, it is historically of im- 
portance as indicating an ambitious attempt to give 
poetical expression to the spiritual conflict of a mind 
brought to face dreadful evil. The prologue that he 
addressed to his London audience testifies sufficiently to 
his serious and ambitious intentions, and to the clear 
separation of tragedy from other forms of drama, which 
he and other poets were trying to force upon the theatre. 

" Therefore we proclaim. 
If any spirit breathes within this round 
Uncapable of weighty passion, 
(As from his birth being hugged in the arms 
And nuzled 'twixt the breasts of Happiness,) 
Who winks and shuts his apprehension up 
From common sense of what men were, and are; 
"Who would not know what men must be: let such 
Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows; 
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast, 
Nail'd to the earth with grief; if any heart. 
Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring; 
If there be any blood, whose heat is choked 
And stifled with true sense of misery: 
If aught of these strains fill this consort up. 
They arrive most welcome." 

A number of plays dealing with "revenge for a father" 
followed. In 1602 "The Revenge of Hamlet" was entered 
in the Stationers' Register ; and the first quarto, a pirated 
and very corrupt edition, appeared in the following year. 
This quarto, in the opinion of a majority of critics, re- 
presents Shakespeare's partial revision of the old play, 



REVENGE TRAGEDIES 151 

which was put on the stage by Burbage's company in 
1601-02. In the same years Ben Jonson was receiving 
pay from Henslowe of the rival company for two sets of 
additions to "The Spanish Tragedy," and these were 
pubHshed in 1602. In that year Henslowe also paid Chet- 
tle for a tragedy, *' Hoffman" (1631); and in 1602-03 
Tourneur's "Atheist's Tragedy" (1611) was probably 
acted. ^ By 1603 Shakespeare had given "Hamlet" its 
final form as represented by the second quarto (1604). 
The almost simultaneous appearance of these various 
plays is sufficient testimony to the popularity of the old 
revenge story with both audiences and authors. Dealing 
with similar plots, they naturally have many elements in 
common, but they exhibit few or no signs of servile imi- 
tation of one another. They represent independent de- 
velopments of the type that Kyd had introduced a dozen 
years before and that Marston had revived, each re- 
taining many of the old conventions, and each adding 
much that was new. 

Jonson's additions to "The Spanish Tragedy" are 
distinct from the rest of the play and affect the propor- 
tion and movement of the action rather for the worse. 
They deal in the main with Hieronimo; his irony is 
increased and made more effective; his reflections be- 
come more elaborate and pregnant ; above all, his mad- 
ness gains enormously in reality and intensity. His 

^ Mr. Elmer Stoll's argument against this early date does not seem 
to me convincing. See the Appendix to his John Webster, Cambridge, 
1904. 



152 TRAGEDY 

madness, indeed, receives a disproportionate develop- 
ment. Throughout the additions Jonson is picturing 
a mind diseased by grief, sometimes conscious of life's 
unrelaxing pain and again lost in frenzied delirium. 
Thus, the imaginative impulses that responded to the 
demand for revenge plays here stirred a great poet to a 
rehabilitation of the crude ravings of the old Hieronimo 
in a form more intellectual, more vitally human, and of 
immensely greater imaginative range. 

"Hoffman" is a sensational melodrama by a hack 
writer not unskillful in using prevailing conventions with 
theatrical effectiveness. The story is again the revenge 
of a son for a father, but there is no ghost, only the skele- 
ton to excite him to vengeance. He banishes "clouds of 
melancholy'* at the start and shows no hesitation in 
carrying out the revenge until turned from his purpose 
by his passion for the mother of his chief victim. Intrigue 
and slaughter reign supreme; and, as in "Locrine," 
there are two plots of revenge — Hoffman seeking re- 
venge for his father and every one else seeking revenge 
on Hoffman. In the pathetic situation of Lucibella, 
driven insane by grief, Chettle made use of a character 
and a situation familiar on the stage in much the same 
fashion as they must have been presented in the old 
"Hamlet." Lucibella's madness, however, is made the 
instrument of some telling hits at the villain and the 
means of discovering his iniquity. While Ophelia's 
madness has no influence on the main action, that of 
Lucibella leads directly to the denouement. Dramati- 



REVENGE TRAGEDIES 153 

cally this is a very important diflPerence and seems due 
to Chettle's invention. Unlike Marston or Jonson, he 
made httle effort to give the story either imaginative in- 
tensity or philosophical significance. He took common 
theatrical motives and situations, added much and 
changed much, and constructed a good acting play not 
without some grace of verse. A play that was popular 
thirty years after it was written must have successfully 
met the stage demand. 

Tourneur's "Atheist's Tragedy" differs in many re- 
spects from all preceding revenge plays. The revenge 
is for a father murdered by an uncle and directed by a 
ghost. The revenge, however, is left to Providence ; the 
ghost is Christian; the avenging son not only hesitates, 
but after a little irresolution overcomes his inclinations 
to revenge, and, obeying the ghost's behests, resignedly 
awaits the judgment of heaven. In stage presentation 
the play-also shows a wide departure from Kyd, espe- 
cially in the indescribable comic underplot. There are, 
however, three appearances of the ghost, — one to sol- 
diers on watch, — churchyard scenes, banquets, sword 
fights, suicides, scaffolds, and death's-heads. In the accu- 
mulation of horrors, in the development of the villain's 
character, in the emphasis on new sensational motives at 
the expense of revenge, and in the more elaborate hand- 
ling of the intrigue, it may be said to carry the general 
development of the revenge tragedy a step farther than 
Marston or Chettle, and a step nearer to Webster. On 
the other hand, in its definite attempt to present an 



154 TRAGEDY 

intellectual conception not lacking in moral grandeur, 
it sometimes, more closely than any of the other plays 
considered, approaches "Hamlet." The change in the 
revenge motive is especially manifest in the soliloquies 
and reflective passages, which unite in a fairly well con- 
nected argument that points the moral of the action, the 
omnipotence of God's providence. 

When, after an interval of some half dozen years, 
Shakespeare returned to tragedy, evidently both the 
demands of the theatres and the artistic impulses of the 
poets were different from those of Marlowe's day. The 
plays of Marlowe and Kyd were still active forces in 
the drama, but in 1600-01, when Shakespeare was 
perhaps writing both "Julius Caesar" and the first re- 
vision of "Hamlet," the man of the hour in tragedy was 
Marston. 

In "Julius Caesar" Shakespeare availed himself of 
a theme already a favorite. The story of the overthrow 
of a tyrant, the progress of a conspiracy, the fall of a 
prince, and his revenge upon the murderers furnished 
material well approved for tragedy, while the greatness 
of the events and the actors both gave assurance of 
popular interest and incited the poet to his best. Shake- 
speare was not directed by scrupulous regard for his- 
torical accuracy, but his genius was stirred by that of 
Plutarch to. give the events of the Roman civil war the 
interest and vitality he had given to the reigns of Eng- 
lish kings. In dealing with a story that followed so 
closely the standard lines of tragedy, — the murder and 



HAMLET 155 

the revenge, — Shakespeare adopted some of the methods 
current in contemporary plays. There is really no evi- 
dence to support Mr. Fleay's ingenious surmise that the 
play was originally in two parts, — I, The Death, and II, 
The Revenge of Caesar, — but the play seems to have 
separated itself naturally into those two divisions. The 
rise of the action traces the rise of the conspiracy to 
Caesar's death ; the return of the action proceeds to the 
failure and deaths of the conspirators. But from the 
beginning Shakespeare must have found his interest en- 
gaged less by the story of conspiracy or revenge, or even 
by the presentation of the turmoil of an empire, than by 
the delineation of the character of Brutus. There, for 
him, lay the kernel of the tragedy, in the struggle of a 
highly gifted nature with a task unfit for his accom- 
plishment. The play became not a tragedy of over- 
reaching ambition, as Marlowe might have made **The 
Tragedy of Caesar," nor the tragedy of supernaturally 
ordained revenge, as Kyd might have made *' Caesar's 
Revenge," but the tragedy of Brutus, — the fateful 
struggle of a noble mind against counter actors and 
against chance, and also against an incurable deficiency 
in his own temperament. 

Similarly, in revising the old "Hamlet," Shakespeare 
must have been attracted by the possibilities in the char- 
acter of the hesitating avenger. Here, however, as we 
have seen, the influence of his contemporaries was con- 
siderable and complex. The plot, situations, types of 
character, and leading motives of the old "Hamlet" 



156 TRAGEDY 

were already familiar to the stage in several plays. Re- 
venge, directed by a ghost, hesitation on the part of the 
hero, insanity real or feigned, intrigue, copious blood- 
shed, a secondary revenge plot, meditative philosophiz- 
ing in the form of soliloquies, were all essential elements 
probably of the Kydian "Hamlet," certainly of several 
other revenge plays. The refusal of an opportunity to 
kill the villain, the songs and wild talk of a mad woman, 
the murder of an innocent intruder, scenes in a church- 
yard, the appearance of the ghost to soldiers of the watch, 
the play within the play, — all these as well as many more 
minor conventionalities, such as the swearing on the 
sword hilt, or the voice of the ghost in the cellar, had 
appeared in other plays than the old "Hamlet." And 
Hamlet himself, wild and ranting at times, crafty and 
dissimulating at others, cynical and ironical, given to 
melancholy and meditation, hesitating in bewilderment, 
harassed by the unavoidable "whips and scorns of time," 
— so far as we can analyze the tragic hero, his character- 
istics had been already used by contemporary dramatists. 
Dramatic ingenuity was all that was required to make 
a new play out of this abundance of old material. Chet- 
tle succeeded in doing just this. Marston, Jonson, and 
Tourneur, however, had been trying to give the old 
story philosophical significance and a highly imagina- 
tive phrasing. They had glimpses of the dramatic and 
poetic possibilities that lay in the situation of the hesita- 
ting revenger, and at moments they succeeded in realizing 
these. Shakespeare set himself to their task, and natu- 



HAMLET 157 

rally enough he was in many ways limited and directed 
by their efforts. It was perfectly possible for him to 
change the plot completely, or to omit the ghost in the 
cellar, or to remove the bloodthirsty and intriguing 
elements from the part of Hamlet, or to give a more 
Christian interpretation to the revenge; but in these 
and other matters he followed the practice of the earlier 
plays. There was no dramatic need of so many long 
soliloquies; the meditative avenger need not have been 
ironical ; insanity might have received less elaboration ; 
but in these respects Shakespeare was in agreement 
with his contemporaries. The themes which they took 
inspired him. He succeeded in doing what they vainly 
attempted. 

He by no means neglected the external story or denied 
the theatrical demand for sensation. He, perhaps, did 
not radically change the course of events as depicted 
in the old play, but he unquestionably improved on any 
preceding tragedy in the mere effectiveness of the scenic 
presentation of a sensational story. How great this 
effectiveness is may be judged by the continued popu- 
larity of "Hamlet" as a stage performance even before 
unlettered auditors. We may surmise that had poetry 
and philosophy both perished, it would still draw its 
crowds as it does to-day on the remote borders of civil- 
ization. This theatrical triumph is due in part to dra- 
matic excellence of structure and presentation. From 
the old play probably came a story restricted by semi- 
Senecan technic to a great emotional crisis; but Shaker 



158 TRAGEDY 

speare at least resisted the temptation, to which his con- 
temporaries succumbed, of extending the action over 
the events leading up to the murder. And assuredly to 
him rather than to Kyd or another is due the recognition 
of the dramatic values of the story's beginning, middle, 
and end. Magnificent as is his development of the ghost 
scenes at the beginning, still more important structu- 
rally is his realization of the value of the middle of the 
tragedy and treatment of the play within the play and 
its immediate sequences; and if the end is developed 
with an Elizabethan looseness of coherence that will 
not correspond to any logical scheme of structure, yet 
the pathos of the Ophelia scenes and the wonderful 
grotesquery of the graveyard excite and renew the 
spectator's interest to the final catastrophe. The scenic 
presentation, while telling a sensational story with pre- 
eminent effectiveness, becomes as never before in Eng- 
lish drama the means for exhibiting the inner struggle 
of the protagonist. Parallel with the external conflict 
between murderer and avenger, beginning with the ad- 
vent of the ghost and ending with a holocaust, there 
runs the story of a man's moods and thoughts ; and this 
story of doubt and melancholy overpowering resolution 
imposes its unity of structure and emotional tone upon 
the external conflict so full of visible action. The throng 
of dreadful happenings becomes a foil to set off the inner 
struggle of thought. Their climax is only the brink of 
resolution from which Hamlet shrinks. Their catastrophe 
is the end of irresolution in silence. 



HAMLET 159 

The reflections and moralizings and broodings over 
misfortunes inherited from Seneca, and long an essen- 
tial element in the revenge plays, are also, like the sen- 
sational incidents, integrated and humanized by the 
conception of the hero's character. The soliloquies, 
though keeping to the themes and methods of contem- 
porary drama, become landmarks in the depiction of 
the inner struggle and in the general progress of the 
action. The absurd convention of speaking aloud one's 
unformed and unbidden thoughts becomes theatrically 
exciting, dramatically essential, and, through the reach 
of Shakespeare's imaginative expression, representative 
of the eternal battle of human frailty against the mys-~^ 
teries of chance and evil. 

Analysis might, indeed, continue to discover in the 
multiform impressiveness of the characterization and 
the poetry survivals of old conventions and hints of the 
method of Shakespeare's transformation. Taken apart, 
various passages seem overburdened with rhetoric, after 
the style of the day, and others over-sententious. Taken 
piece by piece, the sarcasm, the irony, the pessimism, 
the stoic philosophy, even the passionate protest against 
destiny, have much in common with the ideas then cur- 
rent in other plays. But here again the transformation 
accomplished through unrivaled powers of expression 
and knowledge of human nature seems to result from 
an absorbing interest in the meditating and hesitating 
temperament of the hero. The union of a drama of i 
blood-vengeance with a drama of thought, a union that/ 



160 TRAGEDY 

had been often attempted by others, is finally achieved, 
because here for the first time there is full recognition 
of the tragic interest, movement, and significance of a 
man's battle with himself. The tragic drama of char- 
acter has been consummated. 

In Shakespeare's conception of the tragic hero we 
find many characteristics and some incongruities that 
belong to the old avengers ; but there is new penetration 
into the sources of human motive that results in an 
essentially new view of the functions and scope of the 
tragic drama. As in most tragedies since "Tamburlaine," 
the play is a one-part play, presenting a hero far above 
the average in mental and moral power, but for the time 
mainly under the sway of one dominating mood or emo- 
tion. Like the other heroes of revenge tragedies, Ham- 
let is a good man brought suddenly face to face with evil. 
Again, like the heroes of Seneca and of most tragedies 
dealing with a reversal of fortune, Hamlet is a strong 
man brought to face the enmity of chance. He is an in- 
dividual forced to struggle against a hostile environ- 
ment. Again, he is a man in a tragic crisis that requires 
the exercise of all possible powers on his part if he is to 
avoid disaster, who finds himself afflicted with a tem- 
peramental weakness that makes failure possible or 
indeed inevitable. Critics emphasize now one and now 
another element of his character as they emphasize one 
or another of these conflicts as the most important. 
Shakespeare here, as again in later plays, united in one 
hero all the varieties of conflict catalogued by the critics. 



HAMLET 161 

But if we ask which is most peculiarly Shakespearean, 
it must be said to be the conflict with his own tempera- 
mental unfitness, call that irresolution, melancholy, 
meditativeness, or what you will. Here lies Shakespeare's 
main differentiation from preceding tragedy, though one 
distinctly presaged in *' Julius Caesar." At all events, we 
have a conception of tragedy carried out in his succeed- 
ing plays. The hero, noble and righteous, is brought into 
conflict with the results of evil and circumstance, and / 
he is crippled by his own inability or weakness. Tragedy 
becomes inherent in character, in the incompleteness 
that marks the best and mightiest of mankind. 

Our consideration of "Hamlet" has been prolonged 
partly because its relations to contemporary drama can 
be traced more readily than those of Shakespeare's 
other tragedies, and partly because it is the first of his 
plays to afford a full definition of tragedy, a conception 
of prime importance both in the development of Shake- 
speare's art and in the future history of the drama. A 
sensational struggle is presented, and the abounding 
incidents are wrought into effective if loosely connected 
stage-scenes, dealing with material similar to that then 
current in the theatres, — villains, ghosts, murders, 
insanity, grim farce, meditations, aphorisms. But the 
scenic presentation and the dramatic structure are to 
express not only an external conflict between hero and _ 
counter-force, but an inner struggle of the hero himself. 
They are to be the effects and results, nay, the very mir- 
ror of the inner thought and feeling. And the disaster 



162 TRAGEDY 

that falls upon the hero and those by him beloved comes 
home to us as due not merely to external forces or 
circumstances or to evil working within, but also to an 
inherent unfitness of his own^ 

This conception of tragedy found further exemplifi- 
cation in "Othello,"^ freer from Elizabethan methods 
than any of the other tragedies, and the most masterful 
of all as a play. The fable was found in an Italian novella 
that related, like so many of its class, a bald story of 
love, jealousy, and villany. The very baldness of the 
narrative in comparison with the fullness of incident and 
characterization of the chronicles or Plutarch, gave 
Shakespeare's imagination an untrammeled opportunity. 
The ingredients of the story, common in romantic com- 
edy and already combined by Shakespeare in "Much 
Ado about Nothing," were also not unfamiliar in tragedy, 
but Shakespeare enlarged and interpreted them to fit 
the conception of his two preceding tragedies, the pre- 
sentation of a spiritual struggle in which goodness is 
attacked by evil at its point of greatest vulnerability, 

^ Troilus and Cressida in some form was probably acted in 1602. 
The editors of the Folio apparently first intended to class it with the 
tragedies, but they changed their minds while the book was printing 
and placed Troilus without pagination between the histories and tra- 
gedies. The preface to one of the quartos of 1609 classes it with the come- 
dies, and the prologue inclines that way. For an interesting though not 
always convincing discussion of the many difficulties offered by the play, 
the reader is referred to Mr. R. A. Small's The Stage Quarrel between 
Ben Jonson and The So-called Poetasters (1899), pp. 139-170. The play 
offers problems of importance in Shakespearean criticism, but in a his- 
tory of tragedy it seems negligible. The concluding scenes (v, 7-10) 
are clearly not by Shakespeare, and the Prologue and v, 4-6 are doubtful. 



OTHELLO 163 

d The credulity of Othello, however, is assaulted by a more 
active agent of evil than in "Julius Caesar" or "Hamlet." 
Malignant evil is embodied in lago, and it is against 

I his machinations that the nobly idealized characters 

! of Othello and Desdemona prove incompetent and 
defenseless. He is the person who dominates the action 
and gives explanation and plausibility to the circum- 
stances. He not only opposes the hero in the external 
action, he creates through his insinuations all the evil 
suspicions that struggle in Othello's mind. He might 
almost be considered the protagonist of the tragedy. 

\/In structure there is a notable advance over pre- 
ceding plays, accomplished apparently in part through 
deliberate intent. The first act with its account of Iago*s 

---tiraft and the marriage is a distinct introduction. The 
remaining four acts present a practically continuous 
action, confined to Cyprus and representing about 
thirty-six hours. Moreover, by a skillful ambiguity, 
which Christopher North called " the double clock," 
Shakespeare, while securing this rapid and uninterrupted 
process of time, has succeeded in conveying an impres- 
sion of protracted intrigue and slowly-developing mo- 
tives. Thus, without lessening the variety and importance 
of the events and emotions, he gains, by a closer ob- 
servance of unity than in the other tragedies, a greater 
degree of theatrical illusion and of dramatic intensity. 
Again, "Othello" technically is noticeable among the 
tragedies for its relinquishment of many current methods. 
It is neither a chronicle history nor a Senecan tragedy. 



164 TRAGEDY 

There is no presentation of history and Httle of court 
ceremonies. There are no battles, no long exposition, 
no spectacles, no ghosts, no insanity, and almost no 
comedy; It has few persons and virtually a single action. 
The under-plot is subordinated and closely united to the 
main action, and there are no delays and new excite- 
ments between crisis and catastrophe as in "Hamlet" 
and "Lear." Nowhere else in Shakespeare is the pro- 
gress of character, emotion, and deed toward the final 
event so consecutive and so uninterrupted. This ad- 
vance in coherence and proportion seems due less to the 
contributing causes just enumerated than to the expla- 
nation of action by character. Accept the unbelievable 
malignity of lago — and you do accept it before you 
have proceeded far — and every step of the appalling 
chain of intrigue seems a natural outcome of the motives 
of the persons before us. 

In consequence of this integration of character and 
action, the characters are, more than in the other trage- 
dies, distinct and unmistakable. As if to make stronger 
the contrast between good and evil, the good man is a 
Moor, apparently, as in the case of the Moors in "Titus 
Andronicus" and "Selimus," hardly distinguishable 
from a negro; and the bad man is deprived of the 
motive which in the novella rendered his wickedness 
intelligible. Yet nowhere, even in Shakespeare, are gen- 
erosity and greatness of soul more admirable than in 
Othello, nowhere is villany more human than in lago. 
The stage villain here receives his apotheosis as the 



OTHELLO 165 

avenging hero did in " Hamlet. "\ The source of all 
the evil in the play, the Machiavellian machinator, the 
subtle hypocrite whose every action is a pose to conceal 
its purpose, the simulator of honesty and bluntness, 
the shameless egoist who proudly avows his villany and 
bawls it to the gallery, the intellectual master who plays 
every one for a dupe, and especially his accomplice 
— all this had been embodied in the villains of Kyd 
and Marlowe. Although intelligible to Elizabethan psy- 
chology and theology, and credible in the light of Tudor 
politics and feuds, such a type would seem to lack 
enduring truth. While preserving all the attributes of 
the stage type, Shakespeare made it the means for 
that searching analysis of human depravity to which 
his contemporaries were less successfully dedicating 
their efforts. This soliloquizing devil becomes identified 
with the suggestions and sinuosities of evil that partake 
of the flux of our consciousness. Hypocrisy, cynicism, 
cruelty, the absence of human sympathies, the pride and 
malignity of intellectual superiority have henceforth 
their symbol in lago. Impossible, diabolical, inhuman 
as Barabas or Richard III, he is never for a moment 
unplausible, because he ever unearths a corresponding 
potentiality in us. 

The persons of the play, while unusually effective 
on the stage, and while human and real in their dis- 
course, have a universality of appeal essential in the 
greatest works of art, desired by Aristotle and dimly 
foreshadowed in Elizabethan efforts after greatness and 



166 TRAGEDY 

typicality. Othello, Desdemona, and lago create fresh 
reflection and new impulse in every reader of every 
generation. And to each they are not only real persons 
but also symbols and ideals of the generosity, sweetness, 
and iniquity of the universe. This idealization of char- 
acter is accomplished with wonderful clarity by means 
of an expression, splendidly eloquent, untroubled by 
conceit or obscurity, equally masterful in prose or verse, 
magnificently adapted to the representation of every 
mood or temperament. Shakespeare here realized the 
ideal toward which English tragedy under the leader- 
ship of Marlowe had been struggling, the presentation o^ 
human greatness in blank verse beautiful and dramatic/ 

If "Othello" is comparatively free from current con- 
ventions, "Lear" is in many respects the most Eliza- 
bethan of Shakespeare's tragedies. Story, themes, situ- 
ations, stage effects constantly recall the plays of his 
predecessors ; and if his creative imagination here attains 
the most astounding triumph in all literature, it cannot 
be said to free itself entirely from a confusion of archa- 
isms and absurdities. 

Returning to English history, Shakespeare selected a 
story that had outgrown the chronicles and been nar- 
rated by several poets and in one drama. From the early 
"Leir" he took a few important hints, but he treated 
the material of the chronicles with a freedom which 
both its obviously legendary character and its remould- 
ing by other poets permitted. He was only slightly con- 
cerned with the presentation of history and hurried over 



KING LEAR 167 

the battles and the shows, the still indispensable accom- 
paniment of historical plays. He was concerned solely 
with the tragic entanglements of character, with the 
devastations of evil and folly. 

The kernel of the story, Lear's trick and Cordelia's 
unsatisfactory reply, though possessing a kind of objec- 
tivity suitable for the stage, is of itself so absurd and 
.f"- childish as to impede illusion of truth. Its development 
is full of inconsistency, and the interwoven themes of mad- 
ness, villany, lust, ambition, family feud, and ideal virtue 
suggest no break from the Elizabethan canon of tragedy. 
I To the story of Lear and his daughters, Shakespeare 
Y/^ded the still more childish parallel story of Gloster 
and his sons. This common device of a reinforcing sub- 
plot is here extended to every situation and motive.; 
/ Even the devoted Kent is balanced by Goneril's faith- 
ful creature, Oswald ; the inhuman sisters are supported 
by the machinating Edmund ; and, most extraordinary of 
all, the assumed madness of Edgar becomes an accom- 
paniment for the real madness of Lear. The elaboration 
of the sub-plot causes an unprecedented complexity of 
persons and events, and it dislocates the structure. The 
intense interest which is absorbed in the sufferings of 
Lear finds itself distracted and dissipated in a medley 
of incidents so incongruous and so confusing that one 
wonders how a rational mind could have selected them. 
The crowded scenes which separate the climax of the 
third act from the catastrophe assuredly form one of the 
least happy instances of the Elizabethan habit of intro- 



168 TRAGEDY 

ducing a change of interest and a variety of incident 
in the fourth and fifth acts. Yet the structure of the 
play, if far from faultless, reveals amazing mastery. 
The development of the action in the first three acts 
with the constantly increasing tension of feeling, and the 
final gathering of all the different actions in the won- 
derfully condensed catastrophe, are among the greatest 
achievements of dramatic plotting. Moreover, in spite 

/ of his zest for crowded and diversified action, Shake- 
speare's feeling for unity of emotional effect caused him 
to omit one motive that modern renovators have never 
been able to forego. He found a place for battles, vil- 
lany, childish intrigue, the clown's songs and jests, the 
plucking out of Gloster's eyes, and the protracted foolery 
between Edgar and his helpless father, but he refused 
1 to admit romantic love into this drama of the madness 
that separates father and child. 

Though Shakespeare chose to involve himself in these 
manifold diflBculties of story and structure, he hardly 
felt his fetters. No play depends less on mere incident 

\ and event. The inconsistencies and confusion of the 
action are forgotten in the wild turmoil of human pas- 
sions. Wild, terrible, elementary, brutal, grotesque, or 
sublime, — everything in the play is touched with the 
imaginative truth that gives it limitless range of sugges- 
tion, applicable to any discord of parents and children 
or to the most dreadful spiritual torture. Insanity, long 
a favorite theme of Elizabethan tragedy, and fantastic 
grotesqueness, often its bane, summon his imagination 



KING LEAR 169 

to its most wonderful creation when the feigning Bed- / 
lam counters the mad king mid the jests of the fool / 
and the havoc of the storm. Such a conception could 
have been attempted only in an age which took its emo- / 
tions strong and mixed, which found insanity a subject \ 
for laughter as well as horror, and which refused to limit 
the imagination by reason or rule. In that age a lesser 
(than Shakespeare might have formed the bare design of 
Waking his audience laugh at the fool and poor Tom, 
land shudder at the eyeless Gloster and the raving Ancient. 
Something akin to it may be found in many scenes, in 
that in which Marlowe's emperor and empress dash out 
their brains against the bars of their cage in a frenzy of 
humiliation, or that in which Webster's duchess stands 
undazzled amid the dancing ring of obscene maniacs. 
The Elizabethan drama had prepared the opportunity 
for the full and terrible presentation of the discords and 
agony of a breaking mind. The London audience was 
ready for the scenes on the heath. 

Madness is only one element that contributes to the 
; overwhelming effect of the play. Its so-called pessimism 
' is the only other on which our meagre survey may dwell. 
English tragedy had from the beginning concerned itself 
mainly with heinous crime and sin ; and during the years 
immediately preceding and following *'Lear" there was 
a distinct conception of tragedy as the representation vl 
not only of the depths of iniquity but of the moral con- 
fusion and blackness that beset us all. In "Hamlet," 
"Othello," and "Measure for Measure" the sense of 



170 TRAGEDY 

evil is ever present. In "Lear" it grips the reader like 
the rack. As in *' Othello," evil, here represented by the 
two fiendish daughters as well as by an intriguing villain, 
dominates the action, and carries all that is good along 
with it to destruction. But evil is only one of the forces 
that cause suffering and ruin. Lear and Cordelia contend 
against their own imperfections and against chance and 
circumstance so hostile that they seem directed by gods 
who sport with men as with flies and loose the fury of 
the elements to torment their victims. Where else in 
tragedy are the forces that make for ruin so appalling and 
so irresistible; and where else are suffering and ruin so 
dreadful and so complete ? The sufferers are powerless. 
Suffering does not here arouse a Promethean defiance, 
but it discovers and purifies human virtue. If evil is 
dominant over the action, Cordelia, Kent, the Fool, and 
the chastened and purified Lear are dominant in our re- 
flections. The end is not the fall and cessation of all that 
is good. Even in our dismay at the convulsion which 
evil may cause, there remains the memory of the perfec- 
tion of human devotion and love. The final impression 
must, however, partake of confusion and horror at the 
blackness and ruthlessness of a moral order that can 
sacrifice perfect virtue in an effort to free itself from the 
hideous enormity of evil. This is the tragedy of life as 
Shakespeare saw it, and the cry of bewilderment and 
agony seems to come from the poet's own heart. The 
language, sometimes crowded and difficult, has hardly 
a trace of artifice. Rarely as perfectly mastered as in 



MACBETH 171 

" Hamlet " and "Othello," it surpasses even those plays 
in the tremendous sincerity of its passion. If passionate 
despair at things human has a language, it is the speech 
of Lear. 

"Macbeth" offers a marked contrast to "Lear" in its 
brevity and rapidity. In spite of a few probable interpo- 
1 lations, the text is so short that it may likely represent a 
'condensation of the original version. In none of the tra- 
gedies is the story told with more breathless directness, 
or with more effective presentation of the externals of 
the action. The play is more dependent on the chronicle 
than "Lear," and pays more attention to the represen- 
tation of history. In "Lear" the political and national 
importance of the events is forgotten, but in "Macbeth" 
the convulsion of the kingdom is kept in mind, and the 
battles, political intrigue, and the prophecies of future 
dynasties recall the early chronicle plays. The story in 
Holinshed's chronicle, however, conforms to the current 
ideas of tragedy, so closely indeed that one wonders 
that some writer had not earlier attempted its dramati- 
zation.^ Apparently it awaited a Scottish king and a gen- 
eral interest in Scottish affairs. The story is one of crime 
and retribution with a rather striking likeness to some 
of the classical dramas. It coincides with the Senecan 
plan of a crime committed and then revenged through 
the accompaniment of supernatural agencies. It is the 
story, familiar to both humanistic and popular tragedy, 

^ There is in fact a reference in Kempe's Nine Days Wonder (1600) 
to the story, which may possibly indicate an earlier play. 



172 TRAGEDY 

of a usurper who becomes a bloody tyrant and is over- 
thrown after a reign of increasing crime. Macbeth's 
inordinate and fatal ambition also offers an obvious 
chance for a development akin to that of Marlowe's 
protagonists. Again, as in most English tragedies from 
"Cambyses" to "Sejanus," the story presents the pun- 
ishment of evil rather than the suflPering of the good, 
and, except for the absence of lust as a motive, might 
have found favor with any contemporary dramatist. All 
these possibilities in the story were seized upon by Shake- 
speare and adapted to his purpose. "Macbeth" might 
be studied as the complement of *'Lear" in the reflection 
and summarizing of all preceding essays at tragedy. 

Shakespeare's use of these various potentialities of the 
story and the definiteness of his unifying purpose may 
both be seen by a comparison with his treatment of the 
very similar materials furnished by the chronicles for 
"Richard III." There, following closely the Marlowean 
methods, he for some reason minimized the motive of 
remorse emphasized in his sources, and left Richard 
as conscienceless as Tamburlaine or Barabas. In "Mac- 
beth " the story of ambition is also a story of the tempta- 
tion, defeat, and remorse of conscience. As in the other 
great tragedies, Shakespeare informed the old material 
with the struggle of the human will. At the same time 
he made the most of the hints in the chronicle that the 
protagonist was driven by fate or some forces beyond 
his control. He united with marvelous dramatic tact the 
j destiny tragedy of the Greeks and the villain tragedy of 



MACBETH 173 

the Elizabethans. As a result the character of Macbeth 
has its paradoxes that are the despair of the analysts. 
/We do not quite know how far free-will and how far 
superhuman agencies determined his course. But while 
the superhuman agencies give his villany a mystery 
and impressiveness, they never confuse for a moment 
the distinctions of good and evil. The powers of right 
and wrong are clearly marshaled, and the triumph of 
evil leads to anguish as well as to ruin. 

Shakespeare's transforming and vitalizing use of both 
the suggestions of Holinshed and the established con- 
ventions of tragedy in order to suit this changed purpose 
is manifest at every turn, but nowhere so transcendently 
as in his treatment of the supernatural. The ghost that 
interrupts the banquet is no shrieking revenger, hardly 
more than a hallucination of the murderer. The invisi- 
bility of the ghost to all but the one whom he would 
frighten or admonish has other examples in the drama, 
but by 1605 most of the playwrights made their ghosts 
either melodramatically horrible or vulgarly familiar. 
In "Macbeth" Shakespeare not only etherealizes the 
ghost as in "Julius Caesar" and "Hamlet," but makes 
him a part of the very mood and temper of the murderer. 
And similarly, the witches, drawn from Holinshed's 
hints, represent a supernatural interference very different 
from that of the furies, devils, or sorcerers usual in the 
theatre. Some of their stage effects are archaic enough, 
as the shows of the head, the bloody child, and the 
monarchs; some, like their vanishing in air, may have 



174 TRAGEDY 

been novel on the stage of the Globe ; certainly they were 
all intended to surpass in mere theatrical novelty and 
effectiveness any of the supernatural or magical creatures 
of the contemporary drama. Delighting the groundlings 
and appealing to the current interest in witchcraft, they 
are none the less essential to the drama, inwrapt in the 
conception of character. The foul hags of superstition, 
they seem also to have the attributes of the classical 
Fates. Novel and effective on the stage, they are the 
supervisors of Macbeth's destiny. They lay bare the path 
to his crimes, yet they seem to obey rather than to govern 
his inclinations. The embodiments of the desires hid 
in his bosom, they become, like the dagger in the air and 
the ghost of Banquo, the symptoms of his soul's disease. 
The disease of the soul is the theme, and the attention 
is centred upon crime and its accompaniments, as in 
many contemporary plays, but with less relief than in 
any other of Shakespeare's tragedies. While the range 
of crime is confined, lust for instance never appearing 
as a motive, there is an unrelieved concentration on the 
evil course of ambition. The virtuous and noble have 
only minor parts. Lady Macbeth is an instigator and 
accomplice in crime. For the first time since Shake- 
speare's early plays, there is no idealized woman. The 
wickedness of lago and the wolfish sisters was relieved 
by the lovableness of Desdemona and Cordelia, un- 
availing for the time but unforgettable in the sympathies 
of the reader. The eternal stars never glimmer through 
the blackness that broods over Macbeth. 



THE ROMAN HISTORIES 175 

Because of this concentration on one process of evil 
and the absence of any idealization of goodness, the 
play has a less intense appeal to our sympathies than 
the three preceding tragedies. Again, because of its 
concern with historical and political results, it removes 
itself from immediate relationship to common experi- 
ence. In these respects it links itself with the two Roman 
historical tragedies that followed it. 

"Antony and Cleopatra" and *'Coriolanus," like 
"Julius Caesar," are dramas of great historical char- 
acters already splendidly described in Plutarch. They 
are consequently far more limited by their sources than 
are the other tragedies. Shakespeare was circumscribed 
by the main historical facts of persons and events, and 
he was writing as the translator and interpreter of Plu- 
tarch; yet his conception and methods remained the 
same as in "Hamlet" or " Macbeth." An idealization of 
the tragic struggle of the protagonist is environed by a 
wealth of incidents and persons, and accomplished by a 
gathering and transformation of the methods and matters 
of current tragedy. The world of antiquity is not faith- 
fully reproduced, but it is made alive and akin to our 
daily experience in the same fashion as are the Elsinore 
of Polonius and the grave-diggers, and the Britain of 
Osric and Kent. And the tragic conflicts that involve the 
great persons, if confused in the spectacles and actions of 
this varied stage, are the accompaniments of momentous 
national crises, themselves of hardly less imaginative 
appeal than the spiritual struggles which they parallel. 



176 TRAGEDY 

The mental battles of Macbeth and Lear are reflected 
and magnified by the incantations of the weird sisters 
and the turmoil of the elements ; those of Coriolanus and 
Antony by the battle of the powerful and the oppressed 
and by the throes of a dying civilization. 

In "Antony and Cleopatra," the subject of many Re- 
naissance tragedies, Shakespeare chose for a theme an 
ignoble infatuation that leads counter to duty and on to 
destruction. The diflSculties of the historical material 
led to a remarkable reversion in dramatic structure to 
the methods of the early chronicle plays, innumerable 
and loosely connected scenes, constant shifting of place, 
prolonged time, and an absence of tragic unity. The 
problem of a confused and intricate action, voluntarily 
imposed in "Lear," is here forced upon the dramatist 
who will combine the wars of the triumvirs, the conflict 
of East and West, and the story of an enchantress and 
her victim. The tragic course of the conflict between 
infatuation and ambition is incumbered by historical 
details and stage spectacles, but in style and character- 
ization few plays more greatly reveal Shakespeare's 
genius. In no play is the idealization of character more 
magnificent; no other dramatist has made Antony in 
the lures of a strumpet still representative of what is 
illustrious and magnanimous in mankind, no other has 
made a woman with the manners and heart of a strum- 
pet the rightful empress of the imagination. The interest 
in the play is less centred than in the other tragedies. 
It is dhvided between the spectacle of historical events 



THE ROMAN HISTORIES 177 

and the conflict of motives ; it lies as much in the persons 
as vitalizations of history as in their fate as human beings. 
But this is the triumph of historical tragedy as Shake- 
speare conceived it. Its scenic presentation makes alive 
the events and persons, and through a grandiose pano- 
rama interprets the passions that ravished both empires 
and the souls of their possessors. 

The human drama in "Coriolanus" is involved not 
only in historical circumstances, but also in the eternal 
conflict between the upper and the lower classes, the 
incurable disease of the body politic. While their pride 
in class, their blindness to the rights of others, and 
their failure in patriotism are made apparent, the patri- 
cians are treated as the representatives of righteousness 
and nobility. The plebeians, on the contrary, are depicted 
without appreciation of their sufferings or rights, as 
ignorant, imbecile, and the dupes of tricky demagogues. 
Contempt for the mob was a common sentiment in Re- 
naissance literature, and the people as a factor in history 
held little place in the thoughts of the sixteenth cen- 
tury or in the historical drama. But here and in " Julius 
Caesar" Shakespeare treats them with far less considera- 
tion than does Fletcher or Massinger, with a contempt, 
indeed, that can hardly have flattered his audiences and 
that has often been taken as indicative of strong personal 
feeling. Shakespeare must have foreseen at least some 
of the political lessons which would be derived from the 
play, but one may easily exaggerate its importance as an 
exposition of his political theory. He was following Plu- 



178 TRAGEDY 

tarch closely, with an eye for interesting theatrical scenes 
as in " Antony and Cleopatra,'* but with less than his 
usual inspiration. The lack of individuality in the per- 
sons, a certain typicality in the characterization, and the 
heaviness and complexity of the style may have been 
caused less by an intrusion of political theory than by a 
lapsing of that splendid power of characterization so long 
maintained. Moreover, the political partisanship is in part 
a dramatic necessity, almost compelled by Shakespeare's 
conception of tragedy and his dramatic method. Corio- 
lanus must be given resplendent virtues. The populace 
as a foil and contrast must be made contemptible and 
the ready tool of vice. Pride, the fatal defect of the hero, 
must be exposed as was the sensuality of Antony, but 
it must be made the flaw of an Achilles. The role of 
villain is left for the demagogues, and that of the wit- 
less accomplice for the people. Again, here, as in all his 
histories, Shakespeare is blind to the importance of the 
people, because for him, as for his contemporaries, the 
dramatization of history was the dramatization of its great 
personages, and their passions, vices, and ambitions. 

The loss of power discernible in "Coriolanus" is con- 
spicuous in "Timon." Its corrupt text and unfinished 
condition and the certainty that only part of the play is 
Shakespeare's render uncertain its importance among the 
tragedies. Here, however, as in *'Coriolanus," though 
the interest in the causes that make man's misery is still 
keen, the lack of inspiration results in an exaggerated 
type for a protagonist and in an unconvincing exposition 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 179 

of human baseness. If Coriolanus's politics were Shake- 
speare's, certainly Timon's misanthropy was not. 

With these themes Shakespeare's interest in tragedy 
exhausted itself. Possibly influenced by the success of 
Beaumont and Fletcher's early romantic plays, he at- 
tempted in "Cymbeline," and perfected in "A Winter's 
Tale" and "The Tempest," a type of play combining 
tragic and idyllic elements, full of romantic variety of inci- 
dent, and resulting in surprising and happy denouements . 
The possibilities for tragedy are there ; jealousy, villany, 
and intrigue abound; even death is introduced. But the 
main actions are not of suffering and ruin; love and 
forgiveness heal all ills ; and the end is reconciliation and 
marriage. These romantic tragicomedies are not only 
departures from the established tragic forms, but from 
any consideration of tragic themes and problems com- 
parable in seriousness or intensity with that of the plays 
which we have just discussed. 



NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ward, Fleay, and Schelling continue to be the best general guides. 
Important critical discussions of Shakespeare's tragedies by Professors 
A. C. Bradley, Lounsbury, and Baker were noted in the Bibliographical 
Note to chapter i. Other recent books of special interest are: Shake- 
S'peare, Walter Raleigh (1907, English Men of Letters Series); William 
Shakspere, Barrett Wendell (1894) ; Shakespeare and his Predecessors, 
F. S. Boas (1896). For a general survey of the course of Shakespearean 
criticism, see Ward, vol. i, chap, iv; or Lounsbury, Shakespeare as 
a Dramatic Artist, and Shakespeare and Voltaire; or the bibliogra- 
phical lists in the various volumes of Furness's Variorum edition. This 
edition, now in progress, and Malone's Variorum edition of 1821, 



180 TRAGEDY 

are the most valuable in furnishing information. Nearly all recent 
editions of Shakespeare supply fairly adequate information in regard 
to critical conclusions on matters of date, sources, and text. Prob- 
ably the most serviceable bibliography of Shakespearean editions and 
criticism up to 1870, and to a considerable extent for the Elizabethan 
drama, is to be found in the Catalogue of the Barton Collection of the 
Boston Public Library (1888), accessible in most large libraries in this 
country. A complete Shakespearean bibliography since 1865 is sup- 
plied by the bibliographies published in the Jahrbuch der Deutschen 
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. These also comprise nearly all monographs 
of importance dealing with the drama from 1557 to 1642. 

The present chapter borrows from my article on Hamlet and the 
Revenge Plays (Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 1902), referred to in chap, 
iv. E. E. Stoll's John Webster (Cambridge, Mass., 1905) gives a further 
discussion of the Revenge Plays, and especially of Marston. Bullen's 
edition of Marston is the standard. The editions of Heywood's Works 
(1874) and of Chapman's (1873-75) attempt no scholarly discussion. 
F. S. Boas's edition of the two Bussy D'Ambois plays in the Belles- 
Lettres Series (Boston, 1905) has a valuable introduction. Gifford's 
edition of Jonson (1816) is unfortunately not yet superseded. The 
careful editions of various of his plays in the Yale Studies in English 
as yet include none of his tragedies. Ben Jonson, Vhomme et Voeuvre 
Paris, 1907, by Maurice Castelain is very elaborate, and contains a 
full bibliography with a preliminary descriptive note of editions. A 
new edition of Jonson edited by C. H. Herford and P. Simpson is 
announced. 




CHAPTER VI 

SHAKESPEARE 

UR study has perhaps already made it evi- 
dent that Shakespeare's tragedies were in 
many ways the product of a rapid and com- 
plex evolution. At the same time it is clear 
that, until Shakespeare, Elizabethan tragedy with all its 
genius and innovations had failed to attain finality of 
art, or to mark out any sure pathway thither. It was 
still in its formative period when he created out of 
it something new and immortal, and its development 
continued after his death mainly in response to forces 
not of his initiating. For the past two centuries, to a 
constantly increasing body of spectators and readers, 
his tragedies have had a life entirely unconnected with 
the works of his contemporaries, an existence that has 
dominated our theatres and our conceptions of tra- 
gedy, and become a part of the daily living and the per- 
manent ideals of the race. It is therefore necessary 
to separate his plays from the mass of tragedies, and to 
review them for a moment as the creations of a genius 
that was the chief creator as well as the glory of English 
tragedy. 

Two points of view that have been largely maintained 
in nineteenth century criticism of Shakespeare may. 



182 TRAGEDY 

however, be neglected in our summary. His plays have 
been viewed as the reflection of his personal experiences 
and emotions ; and his return to tragic themes about 1600 
and his occupation with them for the next eight years 
have been connected with a supposed period of spiritual 
depression in his own life. Again, the generalization of 
experience and the abundant wisdom of his tragedies 
have been viewed as the result of a conscious and rather 
systematic philosophy of life. Much might be said for 
these attitudes of criticism. Any attempt to describe the 
plays in terms of our emotions as readers is likely to re- 
sult in the attribution of those emotions to the author, 
an interesting process of analogy and one hardly to be 
disproved. Any attempt to survey his work as a whole 
and to relate its parts is likely to result in the systemiza- 
tion of his message and philosophy. But for students 
of the growth of his dramatic art under the peculiar 
conditions of the reigns of Elizabeth and James, these 
nineteenth century points of view involve dangerous criti- 
cal anachronisms. Shakespeare does not seem to have 
been a lyric Shelley or Byron, making poetry out of his 
changing moods, or a Tennyson or Browning general- 
izing life in the persons of his men and women. There 
seems no reason for separating him from his companion 
poets and playwrights. Like them he was in the first place 
telling a story for the stage ; like them he found in these 
plays opportunity for the expression of his knowledge 
of human motives in the guise of beautiful verse; and 
like them, when he chose tragic themes, he became 



SHAKESPEARE 183 

absorbed in the presentation of the tragic facts and 
problems of life. Our attempt to determine his rela- 
tions to them is not to discover indebtedness large or 
minute, but rather by the safest approach to arrive at 
a right appreciation of his genius and its transcendent 
contribution to tragedy. 

For the purpose of our survey we may have the four 
great tragedies chiefly in mind. The early tragedies are 
manifestly the products of an experimental period and 
the precursors of the latter plays ; and the three Roman 
histories have a subordinate and contributory rather than 
an essential and preeminent part in his achievement 
in tragedy. Whatever can be said of the four great trage- 
dies applies in its essentials to all. 

All these plays taken together illustrate the extraordi- 
nary amalgamation of the medieval and classical inher- 
itances that English tragedy had received as a birthright. 
No play escapes from its narrative sources, and some are 
bound closely by them; yet the choice of sources often 
indicates the influence of the Senecan formula, sensa- 
tional externals giving opportunity for an introspective 
analysis of emotional crises, notably in the stories of 
crime, revenge, and retribution. Their enormous variety 
of incident, their mingling of the comic and the tragic, 
their admission of physical horrors, deaths, and spec- 
tacles mark the survival of the medieval tradition, while 
the aphoristic and heightened style, the ghosts and the 
soliloquies are derivatives from Seneca. The freedom 
of the medieval stage to the presentation of all sorts 



184 TRAGEDY 

of matters accounts in part for their splendid compre- 
hensiveness, while classical theory is partly responsible 
for their restriction to momentous events and super- 
normal persons. Their structure remains epic and popu- 
lar, but progress toward dramatic unity seems conditioned 
by the Senecan five-act scheme. The medieval idea of 
the pagan deity Fortune is preserved; and conceptions 
of good and evil, like those of the morality, stand side 
by side with classical conceptions of the struggle between 
the individual and fate. The union of these diverse 
elements has become too close for disentanglement. 
"Macbeth," based upon Holinshed's chronicle, comes 
nearest in conception and treatment to classical tragedy; 
"Antony and Cleopatra" in structure and method re- 
verts the nearest to medieval models. 

More distinct contemporary influences reappear sim- 
ilarly amalgamated and transformed. In "Hamlet" we 
have a play closely related to those of a particular spe- 
cies; but in the other plays of Shakespeare's maturity 
nothing like close relationship can be found to the great 
examples of Marlowe, to the peculiar type introduced by 
Kyd and developed by Marston, or to the contemporary 
efforts of Chapman and Jonson. Any one play doubt- 
less responded to a tangle of influences not now to be 
separated. Current popular plays, practices on the stage, 
the personalities of the actors, Shakespeare's own pre- 
ceding plays, contemporary non-dramatic literature, 
current events such as the Essex rebellion or the Gun- 
powder Plot, and hosts of other influences were at work 



SHAKESPEARE 185 

directing the development of an old story into a tragedy. 
Taking the plays as a body, some of the more impor- 
tant of these limiting and directing influences still re- 
main discernible in the transformed result. 

All the tragedies but "Othello" and ** Romeo and 
Juliet," only partial exceptions, relate the falls of princes 
and the revolutions of kingdoms. These stories of princes 
are of the same kind as in other Elizabethan tragedy. 
In a setting of court and camp they place sensational 
crimes, and trace the accompaniments and conse- 
quences. Thei^ themes are revenge, madness, tyranny, 
conspiracy, lust, adultery, and jealousy. They abound 
in villany, intrigue, and slaughter. They avoid Senecan 
atrocities and the abnormal phases of lust; but the tear- 
ing out of Gloster's eyes recalls the horrors of the early 
plays; while revenge, conspiracy, and villany are as 
prominent as in the contemporary tragedies of Marston, 
Jonson, and Chapman. Three of the stories include 
ghosts, vrhile in "Macbeth" the weird sisters offer an 
opportunity for a most original treatment of the super- 
natural. Comedy is always combined with tragedy, and 
the medieval tradition and the popular taste for an emo- 
tional contrast receive artistic vindication in the grotesque- 
ness of "Hamlet" and "Lear." Each plot, like those 
of Marlowe's plays, centres about a great personality 
and illustrates a temperament dominated by passion. 
It traces the course of folly, mistake, or sin to the wages 
of death as in "Lear," "Othello," and "Antony and 
Cleopatra"; or it begins with a murder and records its 



186 TRAGEDY 

progeny of crime and death as in " Julius Caesar," "Ham- 
let," and "Macbeth." 

Shakespeare's choice of stories was clearly determined 
by the Elizabethan conception of tragedy and by the 
current tastes of the theatre. And by these stories his 
imagination was directed and limited. However absorbed 
he became in character or ethics, he never neglected the 
plot or the theatre. Consequently the great revelation 
of tragic fact which he gave to posterity was limited by 
these stories of crime and hampered by their improba- 
bilities and stage effects. The tragedy of ambition is 
limited to the story of a murderer who sees a ghost; 
and the tragedy of ingratitude is joined to a relation of 
senile folly, crime, and the humors of Tom of Bedlam. 
Even his interpretation of human motives suffers, for 
the bloodthirstiness of Hamlet and the perverse reticence 
of Cordelia belong to the old plots as much as to the 
characters. Yet Shakespeare's greatness of mind no less 
than his responsiveness to contemporary taste appears in 
his very choice of material. Whether he took the oft-told 
tragedies of Caesar, Brutus, Antony and Cleopatra, or 
the old plays of Hamlet and Lear, or the neglected 
themes of Othello and Macbeth, he chose always stories 
of great dramatic interest and those that presented the 
range and vicissitudes of human passion. His attraction 
for each story was evidently in the emotional conflict 
that made each protagonist a great acting part and also 
a fascinating study of human motive. 

Moreover, in his general treatment of this material 



SHAKESPEARE 187 

there is a uniformity that gives some hint of a Shake- 
spearean definition of tragedy. In each play a man of 
great attainments is presented as involved in a moral 
conflict that results in his death. This conflict is two- 
fold, internal between opposing desires, and external " 
against some persons of the counter-actions. ^Conflicting 
forces contend for mastery in the hero's breast, and from 
their confusion he drives on to action that is disas- 
trous. The unusual powers, the best potentialities, of his 
nature are opposed and thwarted by the forces of chance 
and circumstance beyond his control; by the force of evil, 
whether in his own breast or represented by the crime 
and intrigue of others; and still further, by a defect or 
deficiency in his own personality. The force of chance, 
equivalent to the Greek Fate, plays a part in all tragic 
story and drama; the power of evil without or within 
was the counter-force in medieval drama, and was the 
theme most powerfully dwelt upon by Shakespeare's 
immediate contemporaries. The fateful power of in- 
! compatibility of temperament with conditions of life 
seems to have been Shakespeare's own conception. 

In Sophocles, arrogance and audacity are accounted 
evil; in Marlowe and Chapman, it is intensity of desire 
that drives to disaster; but in Shakespeare the melan- 
choly and reflective temper of Hamlet and the generous 
and credulous magnanimity of Othello are the allies 
of untoward circumstance and designing villany in 
bringing suffering to the good and failure to the potent. 
The greatness of Shakespeare's conception, however, 



188 TRAGEDY 

results from the massing of all these combatants against 
the hero. The conflict thus gains in the comprehensive- 
ness of its presentation of life ; and human nature in the 
face of such odds becomes magnificent even in failure. 
Hero wars with villain; human intrepidity and wisdom 
with chance and destiny; conscience with sin; greatness 
of purpose with crippling defects of temperament. 

Such a conception of tragedy involves a recognition 
of the blindness of chance that cannot be squared with 
any theory of poetic justice or theological view of the 
rewards due to virtue. But it also involves a recognition 
of moral law that results in the punishment of its vio- 
lators. The villains never escape as they do in comedy. 
The wages of sin are always death, though the rewaj-d 
of virtue is not happiness. The vastness of evil in the 
world, its malignant influence, its temporary triumphs 
are conceived in a manner not different from that of 
contemporary thought. The doctrines of total depravity 
and of moral responsibility go side by side as in medi- 
eval drama, theology, and psychology. In the depiction 
of the waste of effort, the expense of spirit, the crippling 
of greatness by weakness, the ineffectuality of virtue, 
Shakespeare gave a far more comprehensive and a far 
more penetrating representation of tragic fact than the 
world had yet known, but without professing any solu- 
tion of its mysteries. 

Such a conception gives unity to the action of each 
play, but not always a unity that governs details of 
structure. The structure of a tragedy cannot be described 



SHAKESPEARE 189 

in terms of a system, for the dramatic presentation of 
each play differs from the others and conforms to the 
story it relates. There are many survivals of the early 
epic lawlessness, as in "Antony and Cleopatra" and 
*'Lear"; and in no play is the main action kept entirely 
free from intruding incongruities. Neither act nor scene 
receives much regard as an integral unit of structure. 
The most noticeable structural division is due to an event 
of extraordinary importance reached somewhere in the 
middle of the play. This point, to which the terms 
climax or crisis are sometimes applicable, brings to an 
end one important development of the action, and thus 
divides the play into two parts. Caesar's murder, Dun- 
can's murder, Lear's madness complete one course of 
tragic incident and introduce us to another. 

The effectiveness of Shakespeare's construction, how- 
ever, was not due to a formulation of system or rule but 
to his intuition and experience. His sense of what 
parts of a narrative should be acted and what parts not, 
had developed beyond that of most of his contempo- 
raries. In comparison with his own earlier plays the 
tragedies contain little, whether comic, spectacular, 
or essential to the main tragic action, which had not a 
manifest value on the stage. His ability to create great 
dramatic situations was also at its height, and the great 
scenes are prepared for and emphasized by what pre- 
cedes, so that they gain all the effect possible from the 
dramatic construction. Thus, the appearance of the 
ghost, the play within the play, the funeral of Ophelia, 



190 TRAGEDY 

and the final slaughter are given a value in the mere 
narration of the story for which there is no parallel in 
the many other treatments of similar stories. Of far 
more importance is his use of the developments of char- 
acter as the determining factors of the progress of the 
dramatic narrative. The rapidity with which the first 
two acts of "Macbeth" hurry us to the murder of Dun- 
can, the tremendous climactic pressure of the first three 
acts of *'Lear," are extraordinary examples of his power 
to compel incidents to reveal the course of motive con- 
vincingly. In each play the order of incidents becomes 
a logical development from the characters of the actors; 
each deed, thought, or speech has its sequence. There 
are no tricks, no surprises, no sudden conversions of 
character. Once admit the premises, a person of a 
certain temperament, facing a certain situation, and 
subject to a certain accident, mistake, or folly, and we 
cannot escape the conclusion. The dramatic necessities 
of character are never violated. From the clear expo- 
sition of the first scene, the progress is inevitable to the 
end. 

The persons of the plays spring from the old stories, 
and by these the study of their motives is in many ways 
limited. It is limited again by the types and conditions 
of stage-land. The bloody tyrant, the hesitating avenger, 
the Machiavellian villain come hence. The acts which 
they commit, their moods, motives, their very language 
depend in part on the representatives of these types 
that had long been familiar to the audiences of the 



SHAKESPEARE 191 

theatres. Yet the host of individual personalities are the 
result of a most profound and fresh observation of an 
almost boundless range of life. That interest in char- 
acterization which distinguishes the early drama and 
finds its main illustration in Shakespeare's own practice 
in the preceding decade here comes to its culmination. 
Not only the main actor, but the most conventional part, 
the most absurd business, the merest supernumerary, re- 
ceives its touch of truth. And something more than truth 
to life or knowledge of motive is manifest. The great 
characters are cast in large moulds. They represent the 
courses of the master passions. Smallness of horizon, 
triviality of design, feebleness of mind or body are absent. 
/Momentous crises that try men's souls are the real sub- 

/jects of the tragedies. The accidents of dress, or man- 

' ner, or time, or race, the incidents of action, are forgotten 
as revenge, jealousy, irresolution, and lust seize their 
splendid prey. The greatness of human nature, the 
power of the human will, the responsibility of the indi- 
vidual remain. There is no belittling of reason even when 
it breaks under the crash of the storm. lago is no mere 
stage villain, though he has all the characteristics of the 
type ; nor is he merely a transcript from life, though he 

I has all the variety and plausibility of a human being. 

I He is the embodiment of our countless evil impulses, 
the incarnation of depravity. So with all the others. 
They are human in their truth; they are magnificent 
idealizations in the range and value of their manifold 
suggestiveness ; they leave the stage to become the hab- 



192 TRAGEDY 

itants of our imaginations, contributing to our reflections 
their embodiments of good and evil, folly and reason, 
resolution and doubt. 

They speak a language all their own, though with 
resemblances to their kinsmen in the other Elizabethan 
tragedies. The blank verse, far more flexible than in the 
early plays, presents a triumphant union of the conflicting 
tendencies toward decoration and naturalness observed in 
the other dramatists ; and it is freely mingled with hardly 
less masterly prose. Marvelous in comparison with pre- 
ceding verse is its extreme condensation in spite of its 
opulence of figures and aphorisms. Although crowded 
with thought and image, it is nevertheless, in its response 
to the varying persons and moods, superbly dramatic. 
A critic who is both a poet and a philosopher ^ objects 
to Macbeth's dagger "unmannerly breech'd with gore" 
as violent and crude in comparison with the historical 
reminiscences with which Homer might have made 
Achilles describe the weapon. But recall the scene. Mac- 
beth has murdered the grooms and rushes from the 
chamber to confront the fearful suspicions of Duncan's 
sons and friends. Surely, his false and frenzied excuses 
must be over-fanciful, violent, and crude. 

"Here lay Duncan, 
His silver skin laced with his golden blood, 
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature 
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers, 
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
Unmannerly breech 'd with gore." 

^ George Santayana, Reason in Art, p. 113. 



SHAKESPEARE 193 

Such a style, however, does not readily give up opportuni- 
ties for aphorism or beauty for the sake of absolute truth 
to situation or character. Still less does it mimic actual 
speech. It does give a potency to the stories, otherwise 
hardly conceivable; and it adds to truth of character 
the allurement of music and picture, and the idealiza- 
tion of a magnified suggestiveness. A father has reason 
to curse his daughter — gesture and incoherent words 
might correctly represent life ; a plain sentence of Ibsen's 
might convey the tragedy of the situation — but it is the 
extravagant and terrible imprecation of Lear that has for 
centuries made men's imaginations shudder. Style such 
as this the drama will never recover. We shall sooner find 
another Shakespeare to blend its diverse elements than 
a host of dramatists, like the Elizabethans, fascinated 
by a newly discovered world of poetry and daringly 
adventurous in search of melody of verse, wealth of 
aphorism, luxury of fantasy, and truth to character. 

The effect of Shakespeare's tragedies on spectator or 
reader is so complex as to defy analysis. Incidental 
wisdom, effective scene, immortal story all contribute; 
but the main sources of their abiding impressiveness 
have surely been the characterization and the poetic 
style. If we must continue to seek for a katharsis. do 
not they supply it ? The great tragedies are full of dis- 
aster, wrong, and suffering. The world they reveal is 
not the abode of happiness, but of darkness and re- 
morse. Though the bad are punished, the good are not 
rewarded. Sweetness and innocence suffer and perish 



194 TRAGEDY 

along with foulness and malevolence. The noblest 
spirits are broken ; the wages of mortal effort are failure. 
There are many " breaches in nature for ruin's wasteful 
entrance." Nor does the life hereafter offer a promise 
of compensation. Death ends all, — that is the great 
catastrophe toward which human endeavor precipi- 
tates itself. This is not Shakespeare's view of life, but 
it is his view of the tragedy of life, and its effect upon 
us is gloomy, overpowering, heartrending. But every- 
where this tragedy of life is revealed in verse infinitely 
appealing to intellectual analysis and to imaginative 
exhilaration. Everywhere there are men and women, 
not dead but living, representative of much that is most 
intensely and universally interesting in life, and the per- 
manent guests of our reflection. The old ethical adage 
that it does not so much matter what men do as what 
they are has a particular truth when applied to the 
people of Shakespeare. That they do this or that, love, 
murder, die, is in the story; what they are remains the 
possession of humanity. Our horror at the successful 
villany of lago finds a certain relief in the intellectual 
pleasure and admiration at the creator's achievement; 
it accomplishes a certain purification in its application 
to the lago in ourselves. Still more do the persons who 
most excite our sympathy survive the intolerable emo- 
tions that first greet their misfortunes. When we read 
"Othello " we feel an overwhelming pity, a fierce resent- 
ment, but we would not erase from our possession the 
memory of Desdemona and her Moor. The misery and 



SHAKESPEARE 195 

wrong and death go to make up in our reflection the 
beings whom we love and cherish. It is Lear's fivefold 
"never" that completes for us the loveliness of Cordelia. 
A comparison of the tragedies with the masterpieces 
of other national dramas might disclose their faults but 
would not diminish their glories. Faults in plenty there 
surely are, whether judgment be taken of classicists or 
realists, or of the best standards of the Elizabethans. 
There are many quibbles or fantasies of diction that 
might be criticised, many bits of dialogue or stage spec- 
tacle that might be omitted without detracting from the 
total impressiveness. How many minor inconsistencies 
of plot or characterization might be corrected. How 
complicated and bewildering is "Hamlet" in comparison 
with the simpler harmony of "Antigone." How involved 
and cumbrous, and how undignified in its appeal to the 
emotions, is much of "Antony and Cleopatra" in com- 
parison with "Phedre." How impossible and fantastic 
is much of "Lear" in comparison with "Ghosts." But 
Shakespeare's defects and deficiencies belong to his time 
and to his methods. They are inseparable, indeed, from 
the very means on which depend his consummate results. 
Not in response to literary tradition, but to the public 
theatre; not by a refined but by a daring art; not by 
simplicity and unity, but by complexity and opulence of 
effect ; not by devotion to creed or science or fact, but 
by the idealization and sublimation of man's emotional 
nature, did Shakespeare give to his dramas their imper- 
ishable wealth of life. 




CHAPTER VII 

THE LATER ELIZABETHANS* 

HAKESPEARE'S great tragedies did not 
create a new epoch in the development of 
the drama. In themes and general treat- 
ment they made no marked departure from 
the past. Their translation of story and circumstance 
into the conflicts and processes of character was beyond 
the reach of imitation, and, indeed, not likely to gain 
full recognition from contemporaries. They were rather 
the consummation of the old than the heralds of a 
new era, though their influence on succeeding drama- 
tists w^as wide and permeating, especially as time and 
publication brought a growing appreciation of their 
greatness as literature. Meanwhile, the old types of 
tragedy continued their sway, sometimes little touched 
by Shakespeare's influence. English history plays were 
rare; Roman history plays frequent; Senecan closet 
dramas continued; the Marlowean and Kydian tradi- 
tions received further development. The revenge play, 
in particular, continued to be one of the most conspicu- 
ous types. Further, a most important innovating force 
appeared just at the close of Shakespeare's tragic period 

^ Elizabethan has been used to designate the whole period of the 
drama from 1559 to 1642. 



THE LATER ELIZABETHANS 197 

in the heroic romances of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
which gained an immediate popularity and created new 
practices in both tragedy and tragicomedy. 

The times were changing. The improved social status 
of the theatre, the support of the court, the vogue of 
private theatres like Blackfriars, the increasing interest 
in the stage on the part of the lettered and fashionable 
classes, supplied more intelligent and critical audiences; 
but the increasing Puritanism separated the drama more 
and more from sympathy with the main public. The 
drama became less national, more critical, and less moral. 
The corrupt society of the reign of James I supplied 
little of that imaginative idealism which had found ex- 
pression at the time of the Armada. It offered the 
serious drama either objects for satire and cynicism or 
sophisticated and courtly ideals of conduct. In conse- 
quence, a more conscious art found itself less competent 
than in the early drama to depict greatness of mind, and 
resorted to the tracing of abnormal passion, the casuistical 
inquiry into moral problems, the exposure of evil, or to 
romance without moral intention. 

Yet dramatic enterprise continued unabated. The 
theatre continued to attract poetic ambition. Scholars, 
men of letters, gentlemen of rank turned to the popular 
stage. There was as yet no suspicion of decadence. Rather 
the past seemed to offer, through a recognition of its 
merits and a pruning of its faults, encouragement for 
a greater achievement in the future. In spite of critical 
realization of the absurdities of the early drama, and 



198 TRAGEDY 

of the necessity for a better regulated art, the integrity 
of the national tradition was recognized and maintained. 
In 1612, in a preface to his "White Devil," Webster, 
after explaining that he had departed from the classical 
standards "willingly, and not ignorantly," proceeds to 
extol his contemporaries and masters : — 

" Detraction is the sworne friend to ignorance : for mine owne 
part I have ever truly cherisht my good opinion of other mens 
worthy labom*s ; especially of that full and haightened stile of 
Maister Chapman, the labor'd and understanding workes of 
Maister Johnson, the no lesse worthy composines of the both 
worthily excellent Maister Beamont & Maister Fletcher, and 
lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and co- 
pious industry of M. Shake-speare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood ; 
wishing that what I write may be read by their light ; protesting 
that, in the strength of mine owne judgement, I know them so 
worthy, that though I rest silent in my owne worke, yet to most 
of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martiall: 

— non morunt haec monumenta mori." 

After a time the greatness of the past masters proved 
rather an impediment than a stimulus. But in 1612 
their work seemed to offer encouragement for even 
greater achievement in the immediate future. 

For the historian this period offers less difficulties 
than the preceding ones. After 1610 comparatively few 
plays of importance are non-extant, and few of the ex- 
tant plays are anonymous. The bulk of the important 
plays was produced by a few dramatists, who dominated 
the theatres and whose careers determined the drama's 
development. After examining the revenge plays which 



THE LATER REVENGE PLAYS 199 

about 1612 gave a further extension to that species, and 
the heroic romances of the Beaumont-Fletcher collabo- 
ration, which were produced within a few years before 

/ that date, we may trace the succeeding developments 
of itagedy mainly in the work of Fletcher, Massinger, 
middleton, Ford, and Shirley. 

The main line of the development of the revenge 
tragedy is represented by Tourneur's "Revenger's 
Tragedy," the anonymous "Second Maiden's Tragedy," 
and Webster's "White Devil" and "Duchess of Malfi." 
The four plays may be said to constitute a new species 

f whose differences from the old type seem clearly uncon- 
nected with Shakespeare's "Hamlet" but directly trace- 
able to Marston's plays, especially his "Malcontent." 

Revenge is no longer the main motive but is a sub- 
sidiary element in complicated stories of revolting lust 
and depravity. Tragedy has become the representation 
of vice and sin, with a proneness for their foulest en- 
tanglements. In one play a brother plays the part of 
pandar to his sister; in another a father to his daughter; 
and in a third a mother to her daughter. Nor is revenge, 
even in its subordinate position, the simple blood-for- 
blood requital that it is in Kyd. It may be for various 
causes beside murder; it is bom of malice rather than 
duty; it may share in the moral turpitude of the rest of 
the action. The ghost no longer directs the course of 
revenge, and may disappear entirely. In "The Reven- 
ger's Tragedy " the skull of the betrothed, as the skeleton 
in "Hoffman," takes the place of the apparition; and 



200 TRAGEDY 

in other plays the duties of the ghost are minimized 
or farmed out among various supernatural agents, two 
female ghosts appearing. Hesitation on the part of the 
avenger does not appear. Indeed, his entire character 
has changed. He may be a villain, as in "Hoffman," 
or the villain's accomplice, or one of Marston's "mal- 
contents," or a combination of these parts. The other 
leading elements in the Kydian type are preserved. In- 
sanity of various fonns, real and pretended, is promi- 
nent. Intrigue of a complicated kind abounds, but is 
often dependent, after the fashion of current comedy, 
largely on improbable disguises. Deaths are as frequent 
as ever and more horrible. Much of the old stage effect 
reappears, as in the masques, funerals, ghosts, and exhi- 
bition of dead bodies, but there is a great increase in the 
number and ingenuity of melodramatic sensations. Each 
play is a chamber of horrors. In one, a wife dies from 
kissing the poisoned portrait of her husband ; in another, 
the lustful king sucks poison from the jaw of a skull ; and 
in a third, from the painted lips of a corpse. Comets blaze, 
there are many portents, the time is ever midnight, the 
scene the graveyard, the air smells of corruption, skulls 
and corpses are the dramatis personae. Every means seems 
to be employed to make theatrically effective the horrors 
of death and decay. And once, at least, these means 
are used with tremendous power in the riot of madness, 
torture, and corruption that preludes the death of the 
Duchess of Malfi. 

All or nearly all of the active characters are black with 



THE LATER REVENGE PLAYS 201 

sin. The extraordinary exploitation of villany in Eliza- 
bethan tragedy here reaches its culmination. The arch- 
villain as ruthlessly devoted to crime as Hoffman, the 
accomplice assiduous in revolting baseness, the villain 
touched by remorse, the malcontent reviling human life, 
— all these appear — sometimes all combined in one 
person — and play their parts along with unshrinking 
prostitutes and lustful monarchs. The study of villany, 
however, has gained intensity and plausibility over the 
earlier plays. If none of the villains take to themselves 
much individuality, most of them have moments of 
dramatic impressiveness, and they are intended to be 
realistic. They are drawn with an accumulation of detail, 
a fondness for probing into depravity, with a sense of 
the dramatic value of devilry, and with a bitterness and 
cynicism that often seem sincere and searching. It is 
this cynicism which gives character to the reflective 
elements of these plays. The Kydian soliloquy on fate 
has given way to the prevailing satirical and bitter tone 
that finds its favorite themes in the sensuality of women 
and the hypocrisy and greed of courts, and its favorite 
means of expression in the connotation of the obscene 
and bestial. 

The qualities attributed to these four plays recall 
"Hoffman" and "The Atheist's Tragedy," and still 
more Marston's plays, and the satirical comedy of the 
preceding decade as well as the tragedy. Though the 
four plays are thus classed together, their differences are 
marked. "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" manifests 



202 TRAGEDY 

more than the others the influence of Beaumont and 
Fletcher. Tourneur's " Revenger's Tragedy," far superior 
to his earlier "Atheist's Tragedy," surpasses Marston 
and reveals brilliant dramatic talent. Full of thrills and 
unspeakable juxtapositions, it is governed by a sheer 
delight in horror and unrelieved by any moral standard. 
Webster, on the contrary, made his horrors impressive 
in both poetry and moral. Dependent at every step on 
the work of predecessors, he succeeded as did no other 
poet except Shakespeare in transforming the revenge 
play into a work of art and truth. Chapman was, per- 
haps, his chief model, but the processes of his trans- 
forming art, though not its results, bear resemblances to 
Shakespeare's. He was possessed by an interest in the 
effects of crime upon character, and had the power to 
reahze these momentarily with amazing truth. Hence 
his great portraits of Vittoria, the Cardinal, and the 
Duchess, and the ingeniously and vividly though not 
very consistently drawn figure of Bosola. As Shakespeare 
in "Macbeth" and "Lear," fascinated by the wicked- 
ness of the world, reveled in images of blackness, corrup- 
tion, and despair, so Webster, more laboriously and 
inquisitively, was ever seeking fantastic expression for 
the old truth that all is vanity. In his masterpiece, " The 
Duchess of Malfi," and in a lesser degree in " The White 
Devil," his recognition of moral values again recalls 
Shakespeare. We are moved by the pitifulness of the 
suffering as well as by the horror of the evil. There is 
no confusion of good and bad ; and if the prevailing view 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 203 

of life is cynical, it is not unrelieved by respect for forti- 
tude and conscience. The tragedy of revenge reached 
a new altitude in this play, which, though poorly con- 
structed, tells a story of criminal and horrible revenge 
with a vivid delineation of character, a pervading moral 
sense, and with flashes of speech that attain both poetic 
and dramatic sublimity.^ 

The collaboration of Beaumont and Fletcher was 
finished by the time that Webster published his acknow- 
ledgment of their mastership. Gentlemen by birth and 
breeding, they began writing for the stage apparently 
as pupils of Jonson, entered into collaboration by 1607, 
and in the next five years, by the time that Beaumont 
was twenty-seven and Fletcher thirty-three, produced 
some ten plays that gained them a popularity surpass- 
ing that of Shakespeare's later years, and extending well 
through the Restoration. So far as tragedy is concerned, 
the main result of their collaboration was the formation 
/ of a new species of heroic romances, some tragedies and 
some tragicomedies. Six plays serve to define the type, 
though other plays of the collaboration have resemblances 
to it and, after Beaumont's retirement, the type was con- 
tinued in the work of Fletcher and others. These six 
plays, " Four Plays in One," " Thierry and Theodoret," 
"Cupid's Revenge," "Philaster," "A King and No 
King," and "The Maid's Tragedy," probably owe more 

^ For a somewhat different view of the play, emphasizing its crudity 
as a drama, see Mr. William Archer's " Webster, Lamb, and Swinburne," 
New Review, January, 1893. 



204 TRAGEDY 

to Beaumont than to Fletcher. "The Maid's Tragedy" 
and the two tragicomedies, "Philaster" and "A King 
and No King," are the masterpieces, but the six plays 
resemble one another so closely that one analysis will 
answer for all. 

Beaumont and Fletcher did not, like most of their pre- 
decessors, turn to English or Roman history for their 
plots, and they preserved but few traces of the Marlowean 
tragedy with its central protagonist and dominating 
passion, or of the revenge type in any of its amplifica- 
tions. Their plots, largely of their own invention, are 
highly ingenious and complicated. They deal with heroic 
actions in imaginary foreign realms. The conquests, 
usurpations, and passions that ruin kingdoms are their 
themes, but there are no battles or armies, and the action 
is usually confined to the rooms of the palace or a neigh- 
boring forest. Usually contrasting a story of gross sen- 
sual passion with one of idyllic love, they introduce a 
great variety of incidents, and aim at a constant but 
varied excitement. Love of one sort or another, honor 
also of many kinds, and friendship, which is somewhat 
more steadfast, are ever in conflict. We are given seats 
in an anteroom of the palace, and at once the flow of 
events engrosses us, — conspiracies, imprisonments, in- 
surrections, wars, adultery, seduction, murder, the talk 
of courtiers, gossip of women, banquets of the monarch, 
and the laments of the love-lorn. Or, after a tumultuous 
hour, we may retire to the adjoining forest, where the 
lovers wander to forget their misfortunes, and by its 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 205 

fountains weave their laments into lyrical garlands. A 
few hours, and kingdoms have trembled in the balance ; 
the heroine has been proved guilty and innocent again; 
and the lover has been ecstatic, frantic, jealous, cowardly, 
implacable, and forgiving, and finally wins or dies with 
his honor secure. 

The tragedies differ from those preceding in structure 
as well as in material. Their main purpose is theatrical 
effectiveness; their means of securing it the constant 
\/iise of surprise. Beaumont and Fletcher did not follow 
their narrative sources closely; they invented their own 
stories or used old ones as the frame for their favorite 
situations and characters. The tragic, idyllic, and sensa- 
tional matter is skillfully constructed into a number 
of theatrically telling situations which lead by a series 
of suspenses and surprises to very effective climaxes or 
catastrophes. All signs of the epic methods of construc- 
tion found in the early drama have disappeared, and 
the interest in the action is maintained at fever heat. In 
"The Maid's Tragedy," the climax of the play comes 
at the end of the fourth act with the murder of the king 
by his mistress, Evadne, the wife of Amintor. But in the 
fifth act the main action absorbs the sub-plot and con- 
tinues its course of thrills and surprises until the very 
end. In "A King and No King," the love of Arbaces 
for his supposed sister furnishes many entanglements, 
and it is not until the end of Act V that we know that 
the princess is not his sister, and the tragedy of incest 
is resolved into romance. There is no inevitableness in 



206 TRAGEDY 

the action of these plays. Usually, until the last moment 
there is a chance for either a happy or an unhappy end- 
ing, and in every case the denouement or catastrophe is 
elaborately planned and complicated. 

From the nature of their material and treatment there 
is little difference between the tragedies and tragicome- 
dies. Tragicomedy as a species had up to this time 
hardly been recognized in the English drama, although 
there are sporadic instances of the use of the term 
and although romantic comedy usually offered tragic 
elements. Fletcher's definition (borrowed from Guarini) 
in the preface to "The Faithful Shepherdess," may be 
taken as sufficiently distinguishing the form from other 
species, — '^ A tragicomedy is not so called in respect 
to mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, 
which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some 
near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which 
must be a representation of familiar people, with such 
kind of trouble as no life be questioned ; so that a god is 
as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in 
a comedy." The example of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
moreover, gave popularity and importance to this class 
of plays. Borrowing motives familiar in romantic nar- 
rative and the preceding drama, they yet created a 
departure from preceding romantic comedy, both in the 
constant emphasis which they place upon the contrast 
between the tragic and idyllic elements of their plots 
and in the especial attention they pay to surprising and 
complicated denouements. They aim not merely at a 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 207 

mixture of the sentimental ancj tragic but at involving 
every one in a tangle of disastrous complications, re- 
solved only by a series of final surprises. Although only 
two of the six romances are tragicomedies, the imita- 
tors of Beaumont and Fletcher most frequently adopted 
the form, realizing apparently the theatrical value of 
keeping the spectators thrilled and excited until the end 
and then relieving their sympathetic suspense by a happy 
solution. 

The dramatis personae of the six plays belong to the 
impossible and romantic situations rather than to life, 
and are usually of certain types, — the sentimental or 
violent hero ; his faithful friend, a blunt outspoken soldier; 
the sentimental heroine, often a love-lorn maiden dis- 
guised as a page in order that she may serve the hero; 
an evil woman defiant in her crimes; and the poltroon, 
usually a comic personage. With the addition of a king, 
some gentlemen and ladies of the court, and a few per- 
sons from the lower ranks, the cast is complete. The 
various persons introduce one another in long descrip- 
tions; and, after the introductory speech, the character 
remains fixed, except as the shifting situations demand 
some unexpected revolution. There is no shading or 
subtlety in the characterization, little discrimination or 
individuality in the different representatives of the 
favorite types, who, however, are by no means wanting 
in originality. They do not reveal the depths or com- 
plexities of human nature, but they exhibit fresh and 
ingenious variations of the old types, audacious humor 



208 TRAGEDY 

and abundant spirit, and the power of their creators 
to rise to a situation and to express dramatic emotion. 
Thus, their type of evil woman acquires tremendous 
force in the scenes where Evadne plays her part; and 
their heroines suffer, serve, weep, love, forgive, and die, 
in lines that somehow preserve the grace of simplicity, 
though they wear all the jewels of allusion and imagery 
that the authors possess. Moreover, their men and 
women talk like real persons. Dryden declared that 
they understood and imitated the conversation of gen- 
tlemen much better than Shakespeare, a distinction that 
in some respects is clear to-day. The men of preceding 
tragedies had spoken a language elevated and removed 
from ordinary discourse, but in Beaumont and Fletcher 
the romantic scenes and impossible changes of character 
are made plausible by an absence of archaism and a 
directness and lucidity of speech. 

In the main, what reality the characters retain in our 
memories is due to the power of the verse to reflect 
clearly the emotions of the moment. There is a notable 
absence of the merely sonorous, the turgid declamation, 
the mouthing of strange words, and an absence of over- 
crowding thought or fancy. Beaumont and Fletcher 
had no desire to make their style sententious, weighty, 
and philosophical. They knew what they wanted to say, 
and they said it clearly and rapidly. They had room for 
ornament and rhetorical device, but none for eccentricity 
or obscurity. Another remark of Dryden's, that they per- 
fected the English language, deserves consideration as 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 209 

the view of a century later, and can be appreciated even 
now. The characteristics of their style, so far as it can 
be considered as a common property, seem due to an 
effort to make dialogue correspond as nearly as possible 
to natural speech. This is particularly true of Fletcher, 
who is the more revolutionary of the two and the more 
persistent in his mannerisms. His structure is loose and 
conversational, and his blank verse overruns the borders 
of the rigid pentameter and approaches the irregularity 
of prose. Numerous added syllables and a large percent- 
age of feminine endings further mark his departures from 
past models, and, combined with his end-stopped lines, 
give his verse a peculiar monotony. Both writers rise 
now and then to an intensely imaginative phrase or a 
beautifully wrought description. The verse of neither 
is suggestive of the intricacies of human feeling or the 
splendor of human intellect, but the verse of both, of 
Fletcher preeminently, reveals a fertility of imagination 
and an extraordinary mobility of words. 

These merits of style gave Beaumont and Fletcher 
their seventeenth century reputation and have continued 
to attract readers in the generations since. Ethical ob- 
jections to their plays drove them from the stage in spite 
of their theatrical effectiveness. They wrote with little 
ethical intention. Unlike some of their contemporaries, 
they did not seek to discover the abodes of sin and to 
chastise the monster, nor did they study human nature 
in the light of moral law. They dealt with themes that 
would please their audience and would offer a sufficient 



210 TRAGEDY 

range of emotions for the exhibition of their poetic powers. 
Without imaginations that touched spiritual heights or 
penetrated to the real significance of moral conflict, they 
entered unhesitatingly upon the task of holding up a 
mirror to a society loose in manners and unprincipled 
in morals. They were not so much guilty of intentional 
immorality as impotent to produce moral effect. If their 
imaginations kept too frequent company with the gross 
and the unhealthy, they also sought at times the sweeter 
and nobler aspects of life. What won for their ethics 
high laudation from their contemporaries was their 
rhetorical and dramatic exaltation of ideals of mag- 
nanimity and dreams of idyllic love and devoted friend- 
ship. 

Their masterpieces, despite their limitations, must 
be given high rank in the English drama. Outside of 
Shakespeare it would be difficult to find in our lan- 
guage another tragedy that as an artistic achievement 
can be counted the superior of "The Maid's Tragedy." 
But the main contribution of their collaboration took 
the form of a type, limited in themes and character- 
ization, brilliant often both in dramatic discovery and in 
execution, but tending toward artificiality and conven- 
tion. Their most important innovations, the products 
of serious artistic effort as well as of cleverness and 
ingenuity, mark the acquirement by the drama of new 
habits of doubtful value. Their sacrifice of character 
to situation, their devotion to theatrical effectiveness, 
their lack of moral purpose, their dalliance with the 



FLETCHER 211 

artificial and abnormal aspects of passion, and their 
disregard for the limits of blank verse, all thpse char- 
acteristics furnished examples eagerly followed by the 
dramatists of the next generation, examples that did not 
promote in tragedy a true or comprehensive or noble 
reflection of life. 

Immediately after Beaumont's retirement Fletcher 
probably collaborated with Shakespeare on " Henry VIII " 
and " The Two Noble Kinsmen," and possibly on a lost 
play, "Cardenio." The partnership resulted in no dis- 
tinct departures from the methods of either dramatist, 
but it seems to have been full of incentive for the younger 
man, whose poetic gift nowhere displays itself more splen- 
didly. From this time on he wrote constantly for the 
theatre, composing three or four plays a year, collabo- 
rating on many of these with Massinger, and maintain- 
ing his position as the most popular dramatist of the 
time until his death in 1625. 

Perhaps if Beaumont had lived, the two might have 
advanced to maturer and worthier achievement, but 
Fletcher's work alone rather displays the superficialities 
and artificialities of the collaboration. His amazing clev- 
erness appears in every scene, but he evidently wrote 
more and more for immediate success, and relied more 
and more on his readinesss of wit and invention to take 
the place of earnest and serious purpose. The long series 
of plays in which he had at least a considerable share, 
range in kind from comedies of manners to tragedies of 
blood and revenge, but practically all may be described 



212 TRAGEDY 

as romantic drama, having, that is, strange improbable 
events, foreign and remote scenes, variety and surprise 
in action, and love as the central motive. His sense of 
dramatic value in theme or incident was constantly alert, 
and in Spanish stories, especially the " Novellas Exem- 
plares" of Cervantes, he found mazes of complicated 
action which exactly suited his fancy, and which he 
managed with adroit dramaturgy. The Spanish influence 
is more noticeable in the comedies than in the more 
serious plays; but, whatever the theme or the source, 
Fletcher added bustle and excitement. The distinctions 
between tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, and romantic 
comedy often become barely discernible. The material 
and treatment are similar. Tragic situations occur in 
comedies as well as tragedies, and in either case, though 
finely conceived and admirably expressed, are yet 
always directed by the desire for surprise and thrills. 
The tragicomedies conform most closely to the conven- 
tionalities and repetitions of the heroic romances, though 
they exhibit abundant originality of invention. Through 
their example, romantic and melodramatic tragicomedy 
became perhaps the most popular and characteristic 
dramatic species of the reign of Charles I, and a direct 
progenitor of the heroic plays of the Restoration. 

In his tragedies Fletcher's prostitution to theatrical 
effectiveness admits a recognition of the literary tradi- 
tion. At least, the two which are the result of his unaided 
efforts are composed with more care and with more evi- 
dence of artistic responsibility than his other dramas. 



FLETCHER 213 

In " Valentinian " * he turned from his usual sources 
and themes to those long approved in pure tragedy, and 
found in Roman history a story of revenge and lust. 
Though treating the material with great freedom, he un- 
fortunately followed his source in continuing the action 
beyond the murder of Valentinian through the counter 
revenge on Maximus. The first two acts, that tell of the 
attempted seduction of Lucina and her final ruin, are 
among the best sustained tragic developments in Fletcher, 
and, in comparison with many similar scenes in contem- 
porary drama, testify to his remarkable poetic gifts. 
But the later scheming and the overthrow of her husband 
involve a conversion of character and a descent into 
absurd improbability. In "Bonduca," Fletcher's inven- 
tion moved unhampered. Historical sources are used 
merely as hints and incentives. The stories of Bonduca 
and Caratach are combined; and the interest in their 
tragic fates diversified by the stories of Bonduca's 
daughters and their Roman lovers, by the episode of the 
noble Poenius, by the pathos of the child Hengo, and also 
by some gross and brutal comedy. All these interests are 
skillfully interwoven and focused upon the great central 
scene of the battle. There is stirring presentation of camp 
life, and throughout the action moves with abound- 
ing spirit. The play is not tragedy at all if one judges 
it strictly by Aristotle's precepts or by Shakespeare's 
example, or even in comparison with the emotional ten- 

^ See Coleridge, Notes on Beaumont and Fletcher^ for a characteristic 
and valuable criticism of the play. 



214 TRAGEDY 

sion of "The Maid*s Tragedy." But it is an admirable 
example of the blending of the romantic, historical, 
heroic, pathetic, comic, and tragic, full of human nature 
as well as incident, conspicuous for poetic expression as 
well as theatrical ingenuity, one of the masterpieces of 
the romantic drama. , 

The tragedies in which Fletcher collaborated with 
Massinger or others offer few amendments of his usual 
dramatic habits. "The Queen of Corinth," "The False 
One," "The Double Marriage," and the spectacular 
"Prophetess" are all melodramas in which Massinger's 
moral earnestness and rhetorical seriousness contrast 
with Fletcher's vivacity, and in which clever stage-craft, 
noble poetry, and slipshod and hasty workmanship are 
indiscriminately manifest. "The Tragedy of Sir John 
van Olden Bamavelt *' carries on the practice of treating 
contemporary foreign history, already exemplified by 
Marlowe and Chapman. Hurriedly written within a few 
months of Bamavelt's death, it can lay no claim to be 
a thorough or impartial study of historical events, but 
it affords a remarkable illustration of the readiness with 
which both authors could summon their talents to an 
occasion. Given a theme that had a current theatrical 
interest, and Massinger's declamation and Fletcher's 
pathos came nimbly to the task, and almost at their very 
best. 

The most striking illustration, however, both of 
Fletcher's genius and its prostitution to theatrical effec- 
tiveness is to be found in " The Bloody Brother; or Rollo, 



FLETCHER 215 

Duke of Normandy." Here in collaboration with Mas- 
singer and possibly Jonson and Middleton, he returned 
to one of the stock themes of tragedy, the story of family 
feud and a bloody tyrant. In comparison, however, with 
any preceding dramas of this class, whether in early 
imitations of Seneca or later treatments of lust and re- 
venge, the play shows the alteration that had come over 
dramatic ideals and methods. Its purpose is neither to 
follow literary tradition nor to expose the evil of tyranny, 
but to make some startling theatrical effects out of the 
familiar material. Fletcher accomplishes this purpose 
with his usual recklessness of talent. When the height 
of tragic passion is required he rises to it, or very nearly, 
in the scene where Edith pleads with the tyrant to spare 
her father's life, a scene which Dyce pronounced the 
most real in its passionate earnestness of anything in 
Beaumont and Fletcher's writings. But the most astound- 
ing display of his power comes where there is no genuine 
passion but only make-believe. It is the final scene of 
the play. 

Edith, whose father has been killed by the bloody and lustful 
Rollo, is planning to murder him. She has pretended to yield 
to his solicitations, and has arranged a secret meeting with him 
at her house. Enter Edith, splendidly dressed — a banquet 
prepared. She kneels and prays to her father's soul that she 
may forget all pity and kill the tyrant — 

"His heaven forgot, and all his lusts upon him." 
Then, as her boy sings the lovely song, perhaps Shakespeare's, 
" Take, oh take those lips away 
That so sweetly were forsworn — " 



216 TRAGEDY 

Enter Rollo. By one of Fletcher's sudden conversions, he has 
changed to a subtle hypocrite and appears humble, repentant, 
begging for pity and love, 

"in whiteness of my wash'd repentance, 
In my heart's tears and love of truth to Edith, 
In my fair life hereafter." 

Edith, surprised and unnerved, gradually forgets her purpose, 
and as she informs the audience in several asides, is yielding; 
when — Enter Hamond and the guard. Hamond, a brave blunt 
soldier, is seeking revenge on Rollo because the tyrant has 
killed his brother and outraged him by commanding him to 
murder the noble Audrey. Hamond announces that he has 
come to kill Rollo, who seizes Edith and interposes her as a 
defense. She, aroused now to Rollo's real nature, draws her 
dagger, but he snatches it from her. In the struggle that follows 
Rollo and Hamond are both killed. 

All this occupies only one hundred and fifty lines of verse 
and must be accounted a most skillful bit of playmaking, 
a scene such as only Fletcher among the Elizabethans 
could contrive. But there is neither truth to life nor dra- 
matic logic; on the contrary, there are two improbable 
conversions of character. It is not tragedy, it is hardly 
serious drama, it is theatrical claptrap; yet Fletcher's 
poetry is as fine, and, for all that one can see, as sincere 
as in the scene of genuine passion. Such dramatic impos- 
sibilities as this Fletcher faced with eager recklessness, 
and gayly spurred his Pegasus for the leap. 

"The Bloody Brother" further illustrates the union 
of the material and methods of the Beaumont-Fletcher 
romances with the conventions of the tragedy of revenge 
and lust. That union, manifest also in Fletcher's " Valen- 



MIDDLETON 217 

tinian," is henceforth characteristic of the tragedy of 
the age. The dramatists belonged to a late period of an 
artistic development and had many examples both native 
and foreign to draw upon. They were men of talent or 
even genius whose creations were independent and origi- 
nal but rarely without large indebtedness to their pre- 
decessors. While Shakespeare and Jonson were often 
borrowed from, the majority of the tragedies clung to 
the examples of Webster and Tourneur or mingled re- 
venge and horrors with the romantic plots and novel 
technic of Beaumont and Fletcher. A marked similarity 
consequently exists in the plays of men of different 
temperaments and purposes. Lustful tyrants and their 
intriguing favorites, love crossed by honor and often 
allied with revenge, illicit and abnormal passion, ro- 
mantic princes and princesses, an action confined to the 
rooms of a palace, situations involving seduction or temp- 
tation, stage-effects whether by horrors or by masques 
and pageants, and a style more equable, less fantastic 
than in the early drama, — these are the ingredients 
which characterize tragedy for the quarter century after 
Shakespeare's death. 

Middleton's tragedies and tragicomedies came late 
in his career, following a period of realistic comedies, 
in which his observant and satirical imagination found 
free play. Though affected by Beaumont and Fletcher's 
romanticism, he preserved most of the traits of the tragedy 
of revenge in its late development, including such pene- 
trating analysis of character swayed by evil as we have 



218 TRAGEDY 

found in Marston and Webster. In some of his romantic 
dramas, as the tragicomedy " The Witch," there is Httle 
of this serious purpose. The various revenge motives — 
of the duchess on the duke who has compelled her to 
drink from the skull of her murdered father, of the 
lover upon the husband who has married his betrothed, 
and of the jealous husband upon his wife — are all treated 
with melodramatic insincerity though with an ingenious 
accompaniment of spectacular and supernatural inter- 
ference on the part of the witches. Attempted murder 
results in wounds that easily heal; the deadly potion 
proves harmless; the duke discovered dead comes to 
life. In the single tragedy written by Middleton alone, 
"Women Beware Women," the revenge species appears 
unadulterated. Isabella's illicit relation with her uncle, 
the use of a masque to bring about the final slaughter, the 
scenes of seduction, and the abominable wickedness of 
all the persons, are elements that recall the Tourneurian 
group. The fluency and eloquence of Middleton's style 
and his admirable delineation of character by rapid dia- 
logue are best shown in the early scenes; after the old 
mother, so beautifully and truly drawn, has disappeared 
from the action, the rest is unrelieved murder and lust. 

The two famous plays that were the results of Middle- 
ton's collaboration with Rowley have somewhat different 
characteristics. Rowley, a playwright used to rude and 
fantastic comedy, and the author of " All 's Lost by liUst," 
a clumsy tragedy of revenge, wrote most of the comic 
scenes and had some share in the serious plots. In " The 



MIDDLETON 219 

Fair Quarrel," the hesitation of Captain Ager to defend 
the honor of his mother unless convinced of her purity ; 
and in " The Changeling," the entanglement of Beatrice 
with the loathed follower whom she has persuaded to 
murder her accepted suitor, offer situations novel and 
ingenious. In both plays, the opportunity for mere melo- 
drama with sudden conversions of character is refused, 
and the series of startling situations made the basis for 
a study of human motive. It is this which gives "The 
Fair Quarrel," in spite of its absurdities, superiority over 
most of the tragicomedies of the time. In " The Change- 
ling," one may easily imagine what havoc Fletcher would 
have made of the characterization in order to over- 
emphasize situations, sensational enough in themselves; 
but Middleton and Rowley followed the best tradition of 
Webster. The rash and pampered Beatrice retains our 
sympathies even in her degradation, and remains con- 
vincingly alive, whether in her incipient love for De 
Flores or her final cry for forgiveness. De Flores, clear- 
headed and well-motived, is the most powerful and 
individual of the post-Shakespearean villains. The comic 
relief supplied by the mad scenes spoils the tragic unity 
of the play. But, except in Shakespeare and Webster, 
the old combination of murder, revenge, sinful love, 
villany, madness, and ghosts had never been made so 
consistently the result of human motive and so effective 
in its appeal to our sympathies. 

Massinger's dramatic career, ranking in productive- 
ness with Shakespeare's or Fletcher's, extended from 



220 TRAGEDY 

the time of Shakespeare's withdrawal from the theatre 
to within a few years of the Civil War. For ten years he 
was mainly occupied in collaborating with Fletcher for 
the king's men ; and of the nineteen plays usually classed 
as his own, none were acted before 1622. His work, 
therefore, falls roughly into two periods, the first when 
he was the assistant of Fletcher, the second when he had 
succeeded Fletcher as the main reliance of the leading 
London company. 

Of his work with Fletcher the tragedies have already 
been considered. In most of the plays of the collabora- 
tion, Fletcher's share is the more important, especially 
in the treatment of the dramatic crises. In plays, as 
"The Queen of Corinth" and "The Laws of Candy," 
where Fletcher's hand is least apparent, there is an ex- 
cess of melodramatic ingenuity without the Fletcherian 
vivacity. Massinger's temperament reveals itself, how- 
ever, from the first in the gravity of his style and the 
seriousness of his morality. From Fletcher he acquired 
his stage-craft and his attachment to the romantic drama 
of thrills and surprises, but his art was meanwhile de- 
veloping a responsibility and purposes all its own. 

Of the plays written without the aid of Fletcher, two, 
" A New Way to Pay Old Debts " and " The City Madam," 
are domestic_com£dieg of manners. The others are ro- 
mantic dramas wEich can be classified only with some 
difiiculty as comedies, tragicomedies, and tragedies. 
A number of the tragicomedies are to be distinguished 
from the tragedies only by the happy endings and the 



MASSINGER 221 

absence of bloodshed. Nor are these always decisive. 
Of the tragedies, " Believe as You List " and " The Virgin 
Martyr" result in victory as well as death, and in the 
tragicomedy, " The Maid of Honor," suitors worthy and 
unworthy are rejected and the vindicated heroine enters 
a nunnery. The tragedies in the main deal with more 
serious and important actions and rely less on intrigue 
than the tragicomedies ; but it may be said of Massinger, 
with even more truth than of Fletcher, that he dealt with 
romantic stories abounding in tragic possibilities, usually 
resulting in happy endings, but occasionally taking a 
loftier tone and a fatal conclusion. 

The plays as a whole reveal a remarkable variety of 
stories and a treatment of sources fully as free and 
ingenious as Fletcher's and often contriving a political as 
well as a moral lesson. Honor and religion play conspicu- 
ous parts as in contemporary Spanish drama, to which 
Massinger apparently owed a considerable debt ; although 
in only one instance, " The Renegado," has direct indebt- 
edness to a Spanish play been traced. The earlier drama 
is also freely drawn upon. At this date it was in fact 
almost impossible to compose a play without traversing 
motives and incidents that were familiar on the stage; 
and Massinger borrowed from many, from Shakespeare 
as freely as from Fletcher, and from minor dramatists as 
well. The story of the usurper Sebastian, told in " The 
Battle of Alcazar," is retold in " Believe as You List " ; 
and the poisoning by kissing the painted corpse, related 
in "The Second Maiden's Tragedy," reappears in his 



222 TRAGEDY 

" Duke of Milan." In spite of their variety and ingenuity, 
his plays are very like others of the period. There are 
the same court and courtiers, general, favorite, rival 
lovers, rival mistresses, and the same trials of chastity 
or intrigues of lust and malice. 

Yet the independence of Massinger's invention and 
the truth of his conceptions of human motive are by 
no means small. In "The Bashful Lover" there is a 
presentation of idealizing and self-sacrificing love, far 
surpassing the courtly compliments of Fletcher and 
rivaling the magnanimity of Browning's conceptions. In 
such themes, just removed from the exaltation and the 
horror thought necessary for tragedy, yet serious and ex- 
alted above the average of comedy, Massinger is at his 
best. An outline of his "Maid of Honor" may serve 
to illustrate both the independence of his imaginative 
conceptions and the careful integration of his structure. 

Act i opens at the court of Roberto, King of Sicily, who, 
after much eloquent solicitation, permits his natural brother 
Bertoldo to lead an expedition against Gonzaga, a knight of 
Malta, who is relieving Sienna, captured by Ferdinand, Duke 
of Urbin, in his ejffort to win the duchess by force. Camiola, 
the maid of honor, after some buffoonery on the part of Sylli, 
a Malvolio-Iike wooer, has a parting interview with Bertoldo 
and confesses that his vow as a knight of Malta is the only bar 
to her acceptance of his offers of marriage. In act ii, after some 
further buffoonery by Sylli, who serves throughout as a comic 
contrast to Camiola's other suitors, Fulgentio, the King's 
minion, solicits Camiola, but is tartly repulsed, and threatens 
to slander her. The scene changes to Sienna, the camp of 
Gonzaga, and then to the citadel held by Ferdinand. Bertoldo 



MASSINGER 223 

and his followers are defeated and made prisoners, Gonzaga 
tearing the cross from Bertoldo's breast. In act iii all the 
prisoners are released by ransom, except Bertoldo, who there- 
upon bewails the falseness of his brother the King. The scene 
changing to Sicily, Adorni, a faithful follower of Camiola's 
father, soliloquizes on his love for her and his intention to take 
vengeance on Fulgentio. Later he appears wounded before 
Camiola and presents the minion's recantation, but is blamed 
by her for his presumption in assuming a task proper only for 
her lover. Upon the arrival of news of Bertoldo's plight, Cami- 
ola, who is as energetic as loyal, decides to sacrifice her fortune 
to pay her lover's ransom, and summons Adorni to act as her 
agent in freeing Bertoldo. Adorni dutifully undertakes the 
mission that promises to ruin his hopes. In act iv the Duchess 
Aurelia arrives at Sienna and Ferdinand surrenders. Bertoldo 
in prison reads Seneca, soliloquizes on suicide, falls on the 
ground, and threatens to rend the bowels of the earth, quite in 
Kydian fashion. Adorni enters, and Bertoldo, upon hearing of 
Camiola's sacrifice, blesses her name and promises marriage. 
It is now Adorni's turn to soliloquize on suicide. Bertoldo is 
brought before Aurelia, who, suddenly enamored, offers him 
herself and duchy. After some resistance he yields. Adorni 
now begins to hope. In Sicily Camiola has convinced the King 
of Fulgentio's worthlessness. In act v Camiola receives from 
Adorni the news of Bertoldo's fickleness, but she still scorns 
Adorni and resolves to seek redress from the King. Accordingly, 
at the marriage of Bertoldo and Aurelia, she breaks in, states 
her case with eloquence and temper, and appeals to the King. 
Aurelia suddenly feels all her love quenched, and Bertoldo 
pleads for pity. All await the fulfillment of Camiola's promise 
that she will declare whom she will marry, and are aston- 
ished when Father Paula announces that she has decided to 
become the bride of the church. Before taking the veil, she 
obtains Fulgentio's pardon, gives one half of her wealth to the 
faithful Adorni, and commands Bertoldo to resume the cross 
of Malta. 



224 TRAGEDY 

In his six tragedies there is less of romantic love and 
more of the blacker passions. " The Unnatural Combat," 
"The Duke of Milan," "The Fatal Dowry" (in collabo- 
ration with Field), and "The Roman Actor" deal with 
lust and revenge in the quantity and quality long pre- 
scribed. In the last named, however, Massinger broke 
away from the conventional treatment and made his 
protagonist neither the cruel tyrant nor the lustful queen, 
but a dignified and noble representative of the actor's 
profession, and took the opportunity of effectively ex- 
panding the old device of a play within a play. The other 
two tragedies present still more originality of conception 
and treatment : " Believe As You List," dealing with the 
fortune of a rightful claimant to the crown, and "The 
Virgin Martyr," perhaps a revision of an early play by 
Dekker, returning to the old material of the Miracles, 
the story of a martyrdom that converts the persecutors. 
In each of these tragedies, as in " The Maid of Honor," 
a number of stories are organized into a single action, 
introduced by admirable exposition, and usually carried 
through with direct and logical progress. In the treat- 
ment of catastrophe, always heightened, prolonged, 
and sometimes full of surprise after Fletcher's fashion, 
Massinger is less competent. Massinger could not keep 
to the inevitable development of character as did Shake- 
speare, nor could he sacrifice character to situation as 
light-heartedly as did Fletcher. In consequence he falls 
between two stools; and his fifth act is usually clumsy 
and unconvincing. 



MASSINGER 225 

Massinger's art was not only less reckless than Fletch- 
er's; it was linked to a serious moral view of human 
affairs. He always worked under a sense of responsibil- 
ity both as a dramatic artist and as a preacher of polit- 
ical and personal morality. Neither the heedlessness of 
Fletcher nor the perversion of Ford is discoverable in 
his plays. Bad and good are clearly differentiated, despite 
the improbabilities of the romantic vicissitudes; and 
poetic justice is administered with decision. Following 
his venturesome and nimble master, he pursues his path- 
way gravely, judicially, somewhat heavily. His careful 
art and sincere morality lack the leaven of dramatic 
genius. The orator and the rhetorician are always elbow- 
ing the dramatist off the scene. His style, never splendid, 
never excessively figurative, is always contained and 
clear. At its best in sustained declamation, it often 
descends to a tone approaching prose and rarely rises to 
the more stirring or impelling emotions. His abundant 
inventiveness also fails him in the great crises of passion. 
Again and again when the heroine is at bay, or the hero 
within the jaws of ruin, Massinger resorts to oratory. 
As in "The Maid of Honor," eloquence is the deus ex 
machina which solves the difficulties of the plot. In con- 
sequence, the characterization, though involving subtle 
and penetrating conceptions of human nature, and often 
logical and consistent, rarely results in living beings. 
An exception must be made of some of his men, whose 
virility and dignity are akin to his own temper and can be 
made real through his favorite rhetorical means. The 



226 TRAGEDY 

women, with few exceptions, of whom Camiola is chief, 
are, for reverse reasons, bad failures. Chastity cannot be 
revealed by an oratorical appeal, and the evil women 
only grow impossible when they add rhetoric to .lust. 

The passing of the greatness of the Elizabethan drama 
is manifest in Massinger as in his contemporaries. He 
retains, to be sure, most of the external characteristics 
of his predecessors; he writes constantly in the light of 
their achievements ; he would restrain Fletcher's theatri- 
cality by a more cautious and responsible art. Like 
Shakespeare he maintains a moral standard despite the 
exigencies of a romantic plot. But the old fervor as 
well as the old extravagance of diction have gone; and 
a careful dramaturgy now finds itself incompetent to 
meet the requirements of great tragic crises. His trage- 
dies recapitulate what has been done before, without 
important advance or departure, and without attaining 
one unforgettable phrase or one moment that electrifies 
the reader with an undeniable conviction of its dramatic 
truth. 

In Ford the results of servile imitation and original 
genius were curiously combined. The first dramatist 
to feel the overshadowing effect of Shakespeare's trage- 
dies, he borrowed freely from "Lear," "Othello," and 
" Romeo and Juliet," and he was hardly less indebted to 
Beaumont and Fletcher and the school of Webster. As 
a playwright he was, in fact, usually imitative and often 
unskillful. As a poet his consciousness of the greatness 
of earlier dramatists now chilled him to bald copying 



FORD 227 

and now incited him to a unique development of some 
of the old tragic motives. With Dekker and Rowley 
he collaborated on " The Witch of Edmonton," a tragi- 
comedy dealing with a contemporary crime and linking 
itself with the domestic tragedies. "Perkin Warbeck," 
a revival of the chronicle history, is without battles or 
pageants, and is less concerned with the scenic presenta- 
tion of history than with the delineation of the character 
of the claimant. His other tragedies, " Love's Sacrifice," 
"The Broken Heart," and " 'T is Pity She's a Whore," 
are at once both more in accord with prevailing modes 
in the drama and more characteristic of Ford's imagina- 
tive temperament. In spite of their worthless comic 
scenes, their conventional material, and their melo- 
dramatic situations, they present tragic passion with an 
intensity and truth possible only to dramatic genius. 

Love is the theme, and an excess of sentiment and 
passion in conflict with friendship, right, or natural law, 
is the particular province that Ford makes his own. A 
favorite in love with the wife of his lord, a brother in love 
with a sister, are the situations over which his genius casts 
an oppressive melancholy that lasts until the final heart- 
breaks. The monarch, his favorite, a buffoon or two, and 
lords and ladies, love-sick or passion-inflamed, play with 
the casuistry of love and mingle dances and revels with 
bloodshed and horror. Villany and revenge appear but 
are not very essential. The seeds of fatal passions have 
been already sown when the play begins ; it is the stifling 
hothouse in which they luxuriate. The end is inevitable, 



228 TRAGEDY 

though it may be long held in suspense and attained 
through some surprise in the final act. 

" The Broken Heart " is the most healthy of his plays. 
Orgilus, whose life has been blighted because Penthea 
has married Bassanio through the intervention of her 
brother, the great General Ithocles, pursues his revenge 
upon Ithocles in spite of much delay and apparent re- 
conciliation. Finally he stabs Ithocles to death just as 
Ithocles is to be married to the princess Calantha, and 
just as Penthea dies of madness and starvation. The 
familiar round of revenge, madness, and torture here 
reappears, but it is told in a story full of romantic senti- 
ment and human passion, and not without sunshine 
as well as shadow. It is the final scenes, however, which 
every reader remembers. Calantha is dancing when the 
tidings of the deaths of her father and her lover are 
brought to her, and she dances on, hiding her grief and 
playing her part nobly, until, duty accomplished, her 
heart is free to yield to its bursting sorrow. 

It is in scenes like these, showing passion restrained 
or overborne for the moment, or the strain and suspense 
preceding the crash, that Ford is at his best. The mar- 
velous parting scene between brother and sister in " 'T is 
Pity" is perfection itself. His imagination dissolves 
the horrible story into the very language of the break- 
ing heart. His verse, lacking both the old rhetorical 
artificiality and the vivacity and adaptability of Fletch- 
er's, possesses a restraint and moderation of language 
and a complex and beautiful melody all its own. At 



FORD 229 

times it is the thinnest of translucent veils " through which 
passion is burning as the radiant lines of morning/* 

One may find in him somewhat of the perverse in- 
quisitiveness of Donne. A wayward and solitary searcher 
in the realms of poetry, he voyaged only to regions un- 
explored or forbidding. But, as we have seen, his imagi- 
nation, wayward though it was, took direction from his 
contemporaries, and he was representative of much in 
-current tragedy. Though Ford's ethical attitude is per- 
haps more non-committal than that of any of his con- 
temporaries, yet his casuistical interest in moral problems, 
and the emphasis which he places on such problems at 
the expense of his stories, are traits common in the drama 
of the time, and especially in the collaborative work of 
Middleton and Rowley. His absorption with questions 
of sex, his searching for new sensation, his attempt to 
bestow on moral perversion the enticements of poetry 
correspond with what is most decadent in Fletcher and 
Shirley. Like his fine-spoken and well-mannered courtiers 
and impulsive ladies. Ford imagined in an atmosphere 
of unhealthy emotion. His plays are immoral because 
their passion is so often morbid and their sentiment 
mawkish. His power to reveal character and passion, 
which rank him with the greatest of the Elizabethans, 
was discovered in his searching the by-paths of the ab- 
normal and pathological. Pathos for him was a flower 
plucked from a poisonous exotic. 

Beginning about 1625 and extending to the Civil War, 
Shirley's dramatic career overlapped and continued 



230 TRAGEDY 

Massinger's as Massinger's did Fletcher's. After leaving 
the university he took orders, but shortly became con- 
verted to Catholicism, and then, after a volume of poems, 
turned to the public theatres for employment. The last 
of the brilliant series of poets who made the London 
stage the home of poesy and contributed to the great 
period of the English drama, at the closing of the theatres 
he was the dean of his profession. His thirty odd plays, 
while naturally continuing the methods and types of 
Massinger and of Fletcher, his avowed master, and while 
reminiscent of much in earlier writers, especially Webster 
and Shakespeare, also reflect about all the character- 
istics manifest in the drama during the reign of Charles I. 

Shirley's remarkable talents challenge comparison with 
his predecessors. He had a share of Massinger's serious- 
ness of purpose and painstaking art, and of Fletcher's 
freshness of fancy and sprightliness of style. In invention 
he is hardly less ingenious than either, and in careful 
construction and theatrical craftsmanship he approaches 
Massinger's undoubted mastership. His verse seems 
modeled on Fletcher's, but it often has a spontaneity of 
movement and a richness of decoration that recall 
Elizabethan style in its early flights. Little of early 
aphorism, however, or of the later obscurity and con- 
fusion remains; these are replaced, sometimes indeed 
by a hackneyed declamation, but often by natural and 
fluent dialogue. 

Yet, in spite of his talents, Shirley's own position and 
his contribution to the drama are diflficult of definition, 



SHIRLEY 231 

because he is so constantly reminiscent of his predeces- 
sors and so constantly approaching, though never quite 
equaling, their preeminent models. His plays, like 
Massinger's, seem to the reader of to-day repetitions 
of one another. Each coalesces in the mind with other 
comedies of manners, or other tragedies of blood, or 
with the tragicomedies of Massinger and Fletcher. 
Whatever the species, love is the theme, lust is pursuing, 
chastity is tried by intrigue and by declamation ; but the 
real interest is in the plot, the tricks, disguises, subter- 
fuges, villains, and surprises that end — as the case may 
be — in the discomfiture of the fools, or the marriage 
of the lovers, or the downfall of a dynasty. 

The drama had become conventionalized. The drama- 
tists were no longer searching for new themes and char- 
acters in a wide range of stories; they were inventing 
their plots but were restricted in their materials. The 
ingredients of early plays served Shirley's purpose, and 
by a few new devices or changes in motive he gave his 
fashionable ladies, his lustful monarchs, scheming favor- 
ites, and exiled heroes new names and adventures, and 
so produced a play. The cleverness of the plot occupies 
your attention, or occasionally a beautiful passage or a 
fine conception of character arrests the mind, but at the 
close you are at a loss to separate the play from a dozen 
similar ones. 

In Shirley, as in Massinger, the most representative 
plays, and certainly those most satisfactory to our taste, 
are the tragicomedies. Bloodshed and horror and 



232 TRAGEDY 

grossness of language and situation may all be absent, 
and the story of love and intrigue, even if it does not 
exalt the mind or purify the passions, may be altogether 
dehghtful. In "The Royal Master," one of the best, 
the role of the lustful monarch is assumed for a single 
scene, only to cure a really charming heroine of her in- 
fatuation for royalty ; and the intriguing favorite is foiled, 
the banished noble vindicated, and two love matches 
completed with gracefulness of language and dexterity of 
plot. Unfortunately Shirley's land of romance is rarely 
so wholesome as here or the inhabitants so agreeable. 

His tragedies mainly conform to the hackneyed models, 
no matter what the sources may be or how large his own 
invention may seem. The earliest, "The Maid's Re- 
venge," relating a Spanish story of the rivalry in love 
of two sisters that ends in a fatal duel between brother 
and lover, is wholly in the tone of romantic melodrama. 
"The Politician," a more ambitious effort, combines 
the villain play with the Beaumont-Fletcher romance. 
Gotharius, the politician, is the villain; Marpisa, the 
evil woman, is his mistress and about to be married to 
the king; Albina, the loyal and long-suffering heroine, is 
the villain's wife ; Turgesius is the prince and hero ; and 
Olaus, a blunt soldier, is his faithful friend. There is an 
insurrection, as so often in Fletcher; and after a long 
intrigue the villain and the evil woman perish, and the 
prince marries the heroine. In " Love's Cruelty," a more 
original conception is worked out with telling realism 
and a good deal of dramatic truth. Clariana becomes 



SHIRLEY 233 

infatuated with her husband's friend Hippolito; and, 
even after the guilty lovers have been permitted to go 
unpunished by the husband, her passion continues until 
her jealousy at her lover's approaching marriage to 
Eubella drives her to his murder. Rarely elsewhere in 
the Elizabethan drama is the story of illicit love told 
with less of glamour and more veracity. These merits 
are perhaps counterbalanced by the extreme realism of 
the language and the stage action. 

In this play the deceived husband dies of grief, but 
Eubella, who had earlier resisted the lustful duke, is 
solaced after the death of her betrothed by a promise of 
marriage from the duke himself. Both " The Politician " 
and "The Duke's Mistress," a tragedy along hack- 
neyed lines, end with reward for the virtuous and pun- 
ishment only for the vicious. Such application of poetic 
justice had been earlier expounded by Ben Jonson in 
defense of the punishments inflicted in his comedy, 
"Volpone." The applications of the doctrine in Shirley 
and Massinger were, however, probably due not so much 
to theoretical criticism as to the popular preference for 
the restriction of the catastrophe to the bad, a prefer- 
ence recorded by Aristotle and evidently shared by a 
generation in which romantic tragicomedy was the most 
popular dramatic form. 

Shirley's tragic masterpieces, however, offered no 
alleviation of horror and bloodshed. "The Traitor'* 
and " The Cardinal " are plays of revenge, lust, intrigue, 
and villany, in which all the accretions of this kind of 



234 TRAGEDY 

tragedy from Kyd and Marlowe down to Webster and 
Massinger seem to be represented. The villains are as 
black as Barabas and as crafty as those of Webster; 
plots are as intricately entangled with counterplots as 
in Tourneur; and surprises follow as rapidly as in 
Fletcher. The corpse kissed by the repentant duke is 
again presented; there is attempted rape and assumed 
madness; in each play a bridegroom is murdered as he 
takes his place in the wedding procession; and in each 
revenge strews the final scene with the dead. But the old 
motives still had power to convey poetic inspiration, and 
the examples of all his predecessors summoned Shirley 
to his best efforts. Perhaps in no other plays does he so 
constantly recall their work; certainly in no others do 
the poetic quality of his language, the vigorous delinea- 
tion of character, and the dramatic depiction of passion 
so worthily maintain what were even for men of his day 
the great traditions of English tragedy. 

Tragedies by minor writers during the years from 
1620 to 1642 offer little that is distinctive. Occasionally, 
as in the anonymous "Nero" of 1624, we have a play 
spontaneous in phrase and lifelike in characterization, 
worthy of the best days of the drama; but in the main 
the plays only repeat what is to be found in Massinger, 
Ford, and Shirley. In spite of the vogue of tragicomedy, 
tragedy was by no means neglected, nearly fifty tragedies 
being preserved from the twenty years, in addition to 
those by the authors mentioned. These include several 
by Suckling, Glapthorne's pastoral tragedy, "Argalus 



MINOR WRITERS 235 

and Parthenia," and his worthless " Wallenstein," May's 
plays on classical history, and others by Killigrew, Dav- 
enant, Carlell, Heming, Davenport, and less known men. 
The large majority conform to the later type of 
revenge play as exemplified in Massinger and Shirley. 
Sometimes the romantic love element supersedes the 
intrigue and horrors, but oftener the horrors have full 
sway. A double plot, usually with an elaborate surprise 
in the fifth act, revolves about lust and revenge with some 
attention to untarnished honor and unconquered chas- 
tity. The lustful duke and his intriguing favorite, or the 
tyrannical usurper and the rightful prince alternate at 
the centre of the stage along with the evil woman, per- 
haps a Lady Potiphar, and a distressed maiden, likely 
to be disguised as a boy. Madness is frequently repre- 
sented, eyes are plucked out, brains dashed upon the 
stage, and many of the old horrors reproduced, but 
ghosts rarely appear. The action consists largely of 
adultery, seduction, and rape; and these are represented 
with a horrid detail that rivals Marston. When chastity 
is preserved it is often by a device similar to that used 
in "Measure for Measure," although occasionally there 
is an exchange of men instead of women. Tragedy is 
for the most part confined to stories of crime. The 
monstrous politicians and libertines differ from their 
sixteenth century predecessors chiefly in the greater in- 
genuity and complexity of their intrigue, their subordi- 
nation of ambition or other motives to those of love or 
lust, and in the prosaic flatness of their blank verse. 



236 TRAGEDY 

Often there are manifest borrowings, and occasionally 
a dramatist evidently strove to include everything that 
had ever been known on the tragic stage. "The Re- 
bellion," by Thomas Rawlins, presents Machiavel, 
a villain, whose soliloquies might be burlesques on Bara- 
bas and Richard III, two mad scenes, a nurse from 
"Romeo and Juliet," a Moor, who is another villain, 
attempted rape, and frequent bursts of poetry: — 

" The lazy moon has scarcely trimm'd herself 
To entertain the sun; she still retains 
The slimy tincture of the banish'd night." 

On the other hand, the usual type of tragedy, with remi- 
niscences of Shakespeare and Fletcher, sometimes shows 
a genuine poetic gift, as notably in Lord Falkland's " The 
Marriage Night." The most marked trait, however, 
of these minor tragedies is their eagerness to out-Herod 
Herod and to make good their weakness in dramatic 
truth by means of stage horrors or rant. "The Valiant 
Scot," a tragedy dealing with the career of Wallace, 
represents the cutting out of the tongue of one English 
ambassador and the putting out of the eyes of another. 
In "Mirza" the protagonist kills his seven-year-old 
daughter, — " Takes Fatima by the neck, breaks it, and 
swings her about." The taste for atrocities seems to have 
been most highly developed at Oxford, where the students 
acted Goffe's outrageous plays and a Samuel Harding 
published "Sicily and Naples," a medley introducing 
revenge for a father, a maiden disguised as a boy, a 
villain-favorite, the Mariana device, and combining 



DECADENCE OF THE DRAMA 237 

rape, murder, madness, and incest in a fashion not 
equaled since "Titus Andronicus." 

Absurd plays of this sort were common enough from 
the days of " Cambyses," and cannot be fairly taken as 
evidences of the drama's decadence. Nor do the main 
differences that are apparent between tragedy after 1620 
and that of the early or of the Shakespearean period 
point to decadence as unmistakably as critics are wont 
to assume. There is a waning of poetic power; blank 
verse descends to prose, and its flowers have a jaded air; 
but there is poetic imagination in Glapthorne as well as 
in Shirley, noble rhetoric in Massinger, and sheer poetry 
in Ford. The ethical tone has in general suffered dete- 
rioration. The moral insight of Shakespeare or even 
of Webster is not maintained ; courtly and sophisticated 
ideals ring false; the language becomes gross; the vul- 
garities of the early plays are replaced by mawkish sen- 
timentality or lewd suggestiveness. There seems to be 
increasing difficulty in presenting persons normally good. 
The reiteration of scenes of rape and seduction be- 
speak an unhealthy moral atmosphere. Yet tragedy, 
though at times perverse or forgetful, still clings to its 
moral standards. It still endeavors to expose and chas- 
tise sin and to incite to virtue. 

Decadence is more manifest in the restriction and 
conventionalizing of the material of tragedy. The love 
for the impossible, the craving for stupendous emotions 
and supernormal passions had given place to theatrical 
court intrigues. The daring attempts of Marlowe and 



238 TRAGEDY 

Shakespeare to depict the great round of the emotions 
had given way to a continual harping on ilHcit love. 
Dramatists were no longer striving to give beautiful ex- 
pression to the terrible, heroic, or pitiable in story, but 
seeking to construct acting plays out of stock situations 
and stock characters. There was a lack of fresh impulse. 
French romance and Spanish drama seem to have en- 
couraged no marked innovations, and French classicism 
was only just making itself heard at the closing of the 
theatres. A man of original genius like Ford staggered 
under the recognition of the greatness of earlier achieve- 
ment and turned to the abnormalities and excesses of 
passion for his themes. Shirley, more typical of the 
period, devoted talents of a high order to repeating 
familiar models. 

Yet there was progress as well as stagnation. Drama- 
tists had shaken off the medieval adherence to sources 
and learned to invent, though their invention unhappily 
followed current theatrical fashions rather than fresh cre- 
ative impulses. The art of making plays had advanced, 
not as Shakespeare had pointed the way, by making 
construction dependent upon character, but as Beau- 
mont and Fletcher had fashioned, by making character 
subordinate to a varied and rapid action. There is more 
complication, more coherence in plot, more ingenuity 
in situation, and a far greater use of surprise than in the 
early plays, but no great gain in consistent motivation. 
Yet many of the early absurdities have disappeared; 
and in discovering what is to be acted and what nc^ in 



UNITY OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 239 

the quick excitement of the spectator's interest, and in 
the careful integration of the various hues of action, the 
dramaturgy is, in comparison with the period before 
Shakespeare, noticeably modern. 

The differences which distinguish the different periods 
do not conceal the essential unity of the entire develop- 
ment from 1562 to 1642. The changes that take place 
in the prevailing types are of degree and not of kind. 
Nearly all the tragedies might be called tragedies of 
blood, for nearly all deal with crime and bloodshed. A 
narrower division like that of the tragedy of revenge 
keeps its integrity from Kyd onward, the hesitation mo- 
tive finding transformation in " Hamlet," the union of 
revenge, intrigue, and madness finding a different devel- 
opment in Webster and others, and remaining until the 
end the most prevalent type of tragedy. A majority of 
Elizabethan plays are romantic rather than classical or 
realistic, though the romance is of many kinds and drawn 
from many widely different sources, as Boccaccio, D'Urfe, 
or Lope de Vega. For a time it is mainly confined to 
romantic comedy, but it soon enters into tragedy and 
tragicomedy. In tragedy it plays a fitful part, but in tragi- 
comedy it conquers the theatres. The course of tragedy 
from its inception in an amalgamation of medieval and 
classical elements, through its establishment by Marlowe, 
its development of types and methods, the transforma- 
tion of these by Shakespeare into a dramatic form that 
changed and enlarged the meaning of tragedy for the 
centuries since then, the further development of types and 



240 TRAGEDY 

methods under the innovations of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
and the splendid contribution that tragedy still received 
from Webster, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger, — all this 
was comprised within a single century ; all that was most 
significant, within a single lifetime. 

Tragedy throughout this development remained popu- 
lar. Less than the ballad but more than any other form 
of literature prior to the pamphlet, novel, and news- 
paper, the drama was the result of popular taste, thought, 
and desire. Tragedy early shook off the bonds of classical 
tradition, and it never ceased to aim first at pleasing the 
audiences. Shakespeare as well as Dekker or Shirley 
was their servant. Even in the later days when increasing 
Puritanism alienated a large portion of the public from 
the theatres, literary standards failed to overthrow the 
sovereignty of the people, though, as the dramatists 
paid allegiance to a restricted and less representative 
audience, the drama waned. Without a guiding criticism, 
without any reliance on authority or tradition, appeal- 
ing first to the public theatre and only secondly to 
court or culture or posterity, tragedy at its best was not 
distinguished by impeccability of literary art. It lacked 
simplicity of theme and precision of treatment; it was 
fantastic in design and language. It lacked refinement; 
it was vulgar in diction and scene ; it was revolting in its 
horrors and bloodshed. It lacked reserve and definite- 
ness of literary purpose; it was sensational, incongruous, 
or naive in its address to the intelligence. But from the 
same conditions that gave rise to its faults and excesses 



UNITY OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 241 

came its excellences. A delight in verbal felicity, a wel- 
come for diverse excitement, and a craving for story on 
the part of the public made possible the wealth of 
incident and character, the varied emotional appeal, 
and the fervid poetry of Elizabethan tragedy. It was 
free to avail itself of every resource of poet or play- 
wright in order to present human passion of all kinds, 
human individuals of many varieties. Its virtues as 
well as its faults are summed up in Shakespeare. After 
his death it developed in dramatic dexterity rather than 
in the comprehensiveness of its mirror of life. Yet, 
without Shakespeare, the fabrics of its vision comprise 

"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. " 

Even without him, the legacy of Elizabethan tragedy 
is an unfaded pageant of the greatness and the pain, the 
passion and the poetry of our little life. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ward, Fleay, Schelling, and the bibliographies in the Shakespeare 
Jahrbuch continue to be the best guides. Dyce's admirable edition 
of Beaumont and Fletcher (11 vols,, 1843-46) has long been the stand- 
ard, but two new complete editions of their works are now in pro- 
gress, one under the general editorship of A. H. Bullen (London, 
1904-), the other edited by A. Glover and A. R. Waller (Cambridge, 
1905-) . The discussion in this chapter is in part based on my Influ- 
ence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare (1901) and my edition 
of The Maid's Tragedy and Philaster in the BeUes-Lettres Series (Bos- 
ton, 1906). I must refer to the latter for a full bibliography of both 
texts and critical works. Miss Hatcher's John Fletcher (Chicago, 
1905) should be added. Webster has been well edited by Dyce and 
Hazlitt; and his two principal tragedies by M. W. Sampson in the 



242 TRAGEDY 

Belles-Lettres Series, with full bibliography. E. E. Stoll's monograph, 
John Webster, referred to in chapter v, has been drawn upon in the 
discussion in this chapter. Tourneur has been edited by J. Churton 
Collins (1878); Middleton by A. H. Bullen; Massinger very poorly 
by GifFord (2d ed., 1813); Ford by Gifford (1827, revised by Dyce, 
1869); and Shirley by Dyce (1833). Editions of selections from all 
these dramatists will also be found in the Mermaid Series of Old Dra- 
matists, with introductions of varying value. Bibliographical references 
to all dramatists of this period will be found in Ward and Schelhng, and 
in general more comprehensive discussion of their plays than are to 
be found elsewhere. Of especial value in the study of sources are E. 
Koeppel's two volumes, Quellen Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson's, 
John Marston's und Beaumont und Fletcher's (1895) and Quellen 
Studien zu den Dramen George Chapman's, Philip Massinger' s und 
John Ford's (1897). 

Among the critical appreciations of the dramatists of this and the 
preceding chapters are : Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, 
Hazlitt's Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Jeffrey's Essay 
on Ford, Lowell's Old English Dramatists, G. C. Macaulay's Francis 
Beaumont (1883), Swinburne's Ben Jonson (1889), and his essays on 
other dramatists. 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE RESTORATION 

HE drama of the Restoration was separated 
from the eariier periods by sixteen years of 
closed theatres and a virtual cessation of all 
dramatic composition. To the drama, as to 
other forms of literature, the Restoration brought not 
only a revival but also a revolution — new fashions, 
new models, new foreign influence, a new age, and a 
changed society. No such break in theatrical conditions 
has occurred since then, and nothing so nearly revolu- 
tionary in the history of the drama. Since then the 
theatres have been always open, the dramatists always 
writing. Changes have been gradual, the history con- 
tinuous. Due recognition must, therefore, be given to 
the last years before the closing of the theatres and 
the first years after their reopening as marking an end 
and a beginning. Really, however, the new was a con- 
tinuation of the old ; the pause was by no means a sev- 
ering of traditions ; and the Restoration drama inherited 
far more from the Elizabethan than it imported from 
France or originated under the inspiration of that 
illustrious patron of poetry, Charles II. 

Signs of continued interest in the theatre had not been 
wanting during the Commonwealth. The theatres were 



244 TRAGEDY 

reopened in 1648 but promptly suppressed and dis- 
mantled. Drolls or short farces derived from popular 
plays were performed here and there in London or in 
the country, and the continued publication of old plays 
revealed a considerable demand from the reading public. 
In 1656 Davenant obtained permission for the perform- 
ance of his " Siege of Rhodes " " made a Representation 
by the Art of Perspective Scenes, and the story sung in 
Recitative Music." Thus, even before the revival of 
the regular drama, came its rival the opera, and the im- 
portant innovation of movable scenes. Two years later 
Davenant produced another entertainment, and was 
performing regular plays before Monk had entered Lon- 
don. Two companies, the King's and the Duke of 
York's, were presently licensed ; these, united from 1682 
to 1695, sufficed for sixty years to supply the needs of the 
London public, and maintained their monopoly until 
well into the nineteenth century. Before 1642 the open 
public theatres had largely given place to the " private " 
theatres in inclosed rooms. These and the contempo- 
rary French theatres served as models for the Resto- 
ration buildings. The stage still protruded into the 
auditorium and was frequently crowded with gallants as 
in the Elizabethan days, but the use of scenery, a drop 
curtain shutting off all the stage but the proscenium, 
the performances by artificial light, together with the 
women actors, who now for the first time interpreted 
Shakespeare's heroines, brought the Restoration stage 
closer to that of our own day than to that of the preceding 



THE OPERA 245 

generation. This transformation from a half -medieval 
to a nearly modern stage resulted in far-reaching changes 
in the drama ; among others, in a new importance to 
female parts and in alterations in structure due to the 
use of scenery and curtain. Few of the old actors were 
still alive, though enough had been gathered to make 
up the nucleus of the companies and to transmit the 
traditions of the Globe and the Blackfriars. The acting 
of the Restoration probably soon surpassed that of the 
earlier period, and the great triumphs of Betterton and 
Mrs. Barry set new and long influential traditions in 
English tragedy. The changes which most fundamentally 
affected the drama were those in the stage and the actors. 
The influence exerted upon the drama by the new 
opera may also be described as largely theatrical. The 
opera of the Restoration is to be distinguished from the 
form as it has prevailed since the introduction of Italian 
opera into England at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. The term was loosely used to describe a variety 
of entertainments, in which the dialogue might be alto- 
gether sung, or in part spoken, and in which the dancing 
and decoration were regarded as not less essential than 
the music. Derived from France, where the opera gained 
great favor and attracted the services of Corneille and 
Quinault, the English species was closely related to two 
national forms of drama, the masque and the tragedy. 
In music, dancing, and machinery it resembled the former ; 
in theme, plot, and persons, often the latter. A resem- 
blance between the opera and the heroic tragedy is also 



246 TRAGEDY 

observable in the prominence given by each to heroic 
love. Tragedies were readily transformed into operas 
as in the case of Lee's " Theodosius " and Tate's " Brutus 
of Alba," and of Fletcher's "Island Princess" and "Pro- 
phetess." Throughout the period the relations between 
the two remain close. They were presented in the same 
theatre; the same actors often played in one and sang 
in the other; an orchestral band was provided to play 
between the acts in tragedy; and tragedy availed itself 
of songs, scenery, and machines. Entirely apart from its 
place in the history of English music, English opera is 
of some importance in the development of tragedy, partly 
as a rival and partly because it promoted operatic ele- 
ments in tragedy itself. Tragedy came in the Restoration 
period to rely more than ever before upon the externals 
of its stage presentation, and on elements then con- 
sidered distinctively operatic, — scenery, spectacle, and 
music. 

From changes in theatrical conditions, friends of the 
drama doubtless found hope for its higher development; 
but the main source of promise seemed to lie in the 
patronage of the court. The court of Charles II indeed 
exerted a greater influence on the drama than any court 
since or, perhaps, before, but the influence was mainly 
toward social and political immorality. Patronage 
rather than public support was relied upon by both dra- 
matists and actors. In consequence, the theatres became 
servile purveyors to the amusement and taste of the king 
and his favorites, and blindly partisan adherents of the 



FRENCH INFLUENCE 247 

royal politics. The failure to represent the nation and 
the consequent loss both in range of artistic impulse and 
in soundness of moral standards that had characterized 
the drama in the reigns of the two earlier Stuarts were 
now greatly intensified. In tragedy , grossness of language 
and manners had less opportunity than in comedy, but 
political subserviency had freer play. Political allegory 
combined with tragedy in plays contemptible as speci- 
mens of either species. This unworthy partisanship and 
this catering to a society mean and corrupt necessarily 
maimed that branch of the drama supposed to devote 
itself to heroic and lofty themes. 

The influences making most for innovation in the 
poetry and art of the drama came from France, partly 
owing_to_theJnstiggiioELoLJJie_xQi^LjI^^ of 

this French influence, like its sources, differed from 
time to time, but from 1660 until after the death of 
Voltaire it was continuous and powerful. In tragedy, 
shortly after the Restoration, the heroic romances of 
Calprenede, Scudery, and others, and the French plays 
which they had fostered, were the sources and models 
of much in the English heroic plays. There was con- 
stant borrowing and adapting from French romances 
and tragedies, as from French comedies. The "Cid" 
had been translated and acted in the reign of Charles I; 
several other of Corneille's plays were translated before 
1670, his subjects and style were often imitated, and 
toward the end of the century the influence of Racine 
was marked upon English drama. The French influence 



248 TRAGEDY 

on tragedy, however, was less a matter of models than 
of rules and theory. The English dramatists never in 
this period got very close to Corneille or Racine, but they 
were greatly impressed by French criticism and precept. 
In an age of reason and modernity, English tragedy, 
like other forms of literature, found its reaction from the 
crudities of an earlier age and its reform of the excesses 
of an untrained art in the pseudo-classicism of France. 

An effort was made, which proved far more portentous 
than preceding ones, to wrest tragedy back into conform- 
ity with the supposed rules of Aristotle. The conflict be- 
tween English and French models, between Shakespeare 
and Corneille, between romantic license and classical 
proprieties had begun, a conflict to be continued in criti- 
cism as well as practice for over a century. Dryden's 
"Essay on Dramatic Poetry" introduces us at once to 
the questions at issue and the state of the debate. The 
main questions were: first, the unities, recognized in 
French drama as necessities and supposedly derived 
from Aristotle ; second, the mixture of tragedy and com- 
edy, or, more especially, the introduction of low comedy 
into tragedy; and third, the use of rhyme as in French 
tragedy or of blank verse as in English, prose by general 
consent being restricted to comedy. In these the English 
tradition was directly opposed by French practice and 
theory, and in many minor matters as well: in the 
'liaison of scenes, favored, as was the unity of place, by 
the use of scenery; in certain proprieties in the conduct 
of kings and of subjects to kings; in the restriction of 



THE ENGLISH TRADITION 249 

tragedy to historical, classical, or at least heroical per- 
sons and themes; and, notably, in the avoidance of vio- 
lence and bloodshed in the action. Dryden's discussion 
reveals French practice and classical practice, not 
clearly differentiated, set up against the English tradi- 
tion, and recognizes much in the former that seems 
reasonable and authoritative. But, on the other hand, 
it insists on the excellence and impressiveness of the 
English achievement. Such was the state of opinion 
shortly after the Restoration, and such, with varying 
emphasis and refinement, remained the consensus of 
opinion of dramatists and critics for a century. The 
laws of the pseudo-classicists were held to be measur- 
ably good, but Shakespeare without those laws had been 
undeniably great. 

Throughout the Restoration the main influence on 
the theatre was that of the earlier English drama. When 
the theatres were opened the old plays were acted. Lit- 
erally hundreds were revived, many of which long held 
the stage. After a time changes in taste and theatrical 
conditions led to revisions and alterations ; but the alter- 
ations of Shakespeare and others not only illustrate this 
perversion of taste, but also testify to the continuance 
of the English tradition. Not merely revisions and adap- 
tations, but the whole drama bears witness to its descent. 
The characteristics of the tragedy of 1630 are those of 
the tragedy of 1670. The influence of the Beaumont- 
Fletcher romances and of the tragedy of revenge are 
hardly less marked after 1660 than before. The comic 



250 TRAGEDY 

scenes, blank verse, complicated plots, physical horrors, 
and supernatural agents, the mixture of idealization and 
realism that characterize Elizabethan tragedy, persist 
throughout the Restoration period. 

The conflict between the contending theories of tragedy 
may be studied in criticism. Dry den's various essays 
recur again and again to the main issues of the war, and 
define with changing emphasis his attempted reconcil- 
iation of the two opposites. Rymer came forward as a 
thoroughgoing exponent of classicism, and at the be- 
ginning of the next century Dennis, Gildon, and Addison 
carried on the discussion. The conflict is also repre- 
sented in the work of nearly every dramatist. There 
are tragedies in blank verse and tragedies in rhyme, 
tragicomedies, tragedies with comic scenes, tragedies 
without deaths and with happy endings, tragedies trans- 
lated from the French, others based on Greek originals, 
and still others in their medleys of farce, horror, and rant 
as Elizabethan as "The Jew of Malta" itself. Many 
of these varieties are represented in the work of a single 
writer, as Crowne, or Lee, or Otway. The career of Dry- 
den sums up and reflects nearly all the changes in opinion 
or practice. His plays, and with them the whole course 
of tragedy from 1660 to 1700, fall roughly into certain 
divisions. For a few years after the Restoration, ending 
at about the time of the "Essay," is the period of the 
dominance of the earlier drama, a period of which Dav- 
enant is the leading figure. About 1664 began the heroic 
tragedies in rhyme which for a time carried all before 



ELIZABETHAN REVIVALS 251 

them. In a dozen years, however, the fashion wore out, 
and Dryden's "All for Love" in 1678 marked the 
abandonment of rhyme and led the return to Shake- 
speare. From 1678 on, the course of tragedy again takes 
to varied streams. To this period belong the most notable 
alterations of Shakespeare, the most permanent of 
Restoration tragedies in the plays of Dryden, Lee, and 
Otway, and also the growth of French methods and of 
the influence of Racine, culminating in the pseudo- 
classical triumph at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. 

At the opening of the theatres, tragedy and tragi- 
comedy took up their courses about where they had left 
off. The plays of Davenant, the main connecting link 
between the two periods, might be treated in connection 
with either, without seeming in the least out of place. 
Tragicomedy of the type current in the thirties con- 
tinued in the sixties; tragedy oscillated between honor 
and horror, fine writing and perverted lust, as in Mas- 
singer, Shirley, and Glapthorne. Spanish stories, long 
influential in the drama, promised for a time to prove 
still more important. Dryden's first two plays, "The 
Wild Gallant" (1663) ^ and "The Rival Ladies" (1664), 
were based, like many other contemporary plays, on 
Spanish originals ; but the second introduced rhyme and 
some of the elements of the plots of the heroic plays. 

^ In this and subsequent chapters the dates in brackets give the year 
of the first presentation in the case of acted plays. The date of publica- 
tion usually coincides with the year of acting. 



252 TRAGEDY 

It was, however, the Elizabethan plays that the audi- 
ences went to see, and that the dramatists had constantly 
before them. The plays of the Marlowean period were 
regarded as out of date, and very few were revived, 
practically none of the tragedies except the early ones 
of Shakespeare. Of the later Elizabethans, Beaumont 
and Fletcher were the most popular, for a time surpass- 
ing Shakespeare. Over thirty of their plays were revived, 
and many of these were constantly acted. Of tragedies 
and tragicomedies, "The Maid's Tragedy," "Phi- 
laster," "Bonduca," "A King and No King," "Val- 
entinian," and "Rollo" held the stage till the end of 
the century, the first three much longer. Jonson's tra- 
gedies, as well as his comedies, were revived ; and Mas- 
singer's "Virgin Martyr," Webster's "White Devil," 
Chapman's "Bussy D'Ambois," Shirley's "Cardinal" 
and " Traitor " were among the plays that carried on the 
traditions of the tragedy of blood. Shakespeare's come- 
dies fell into disfavor, but his tragedies were popular 
from the start. This was due in part to the genius of 
Betterton, who found his best opportunities in depicting 
their protagonists, in part to their merits as stage plays 
for both actors and audiences; but, whatever the causes 
of their success, they soon exercised a large and increas- 
ing influence upon the theory and practice of tragedy. 
The Elizabethan plays, however, had almost from 
the first to encounter a rivalry with a new fashion. Dav- 
enant, their reviver, was also the first with the new. His 
"Siege of Rhodes" (1656), with its scenery, machines, 



THE HEROIC PLAYS 253 

music, rhyme, and heroics, may be said to inaugurate 
both the opera and the heroic play. Howard's "Indian 
Queen " (1664), in which Dryden had a hand, was fol- 
lowed by Dryden's "Indian Emperor" (1665), in rhyme 
and displaying the full-fledged heroic formula. The 
love-complications of its plot are of a kind constantly 
reappearing not only in the heroic plays but in later 
tragedy as well. 

Montezeuma and Cortez are the historical heroes; Almeria, 
daughter of the Indian Queen, is the vengeful passionate hero- 
ine; Cydaria, daughter of Montezeuma, is the angelic heroine. 
Montezeuma 's sons, Odmar and Guyomar, Almeria's sister, 
Alibech, and her brother, Orbellan, all in love with some one, 
add to the criss-crossing of affections. Almeria is loved by 
Montezeuma, but loves Cortez, who does not love her. Cydaria 
is loved by Cortez and also by Orbellan. The two heroines, as 
well as the two heroes, are thus rivals, and the vengeful one 
directs the intrigue. The brothers Odmar and Guyomar, to 
say nothing of a Spanish captain, both love Alibech, and pro- 
vide the usual story of fraternal rivalry. After duels, captures, 
imprisonments, conflicts of honor, renunciations, and jealousies, 
finally the vengeful heroine succumbs. One of the brothers is 
preserved for Alibech; Cortez weds the angelic heroine; the 
rest, including six of the leading actors and several supernumer- 
aries, are killed or commit suicide. 

Dryden's dedication of "The Rival Ladies" to the 
Earl of Orrery gives some support to the latter's claim 
to have been the introducer of the rhymed heroic species, 
though his first play acted was probably " Henry V," 
in 1664. Whoever the originators, their example was 
soon followed by Crowne, Lee, Settle, Otway, and most 



254 TRAGEDY 

of the dramatists of the day ; and for fifteen years or so 
EngHsh efforts in tragedy were confined to the heroic 
model. 

The use of the heroic couplet was its distinguishing 
mark; of course, an imitation of French practice. The 
plots, too, were direct borrowings, or close imitations, 
of contemporary French romances or dramas. More- 
over, the themes and their treatment, the conception of 
honor, the importance given to love, and the pseudo- 
history, all followed French ideas. The unities were 
attended to, if not strictly observed; incidents, persons, 
and scenes greatly reduced in number in comparison 
with Elizabethan practice; and fixed rules of propriety 
in characterization and language observed, all in French 
fashion. 

The English plays, however, formed a type unknown 
in France or anywhere else on sea or land. The plots 
of all the "Sieges," "Rivals,'* and "Conquests" are 
mainly concerned with love, which inspires heroic senti- 
ment and valor, encounters much jealousy and intrigue, 
runs counter to friendship and honor, and works its sor- 
rows and joys among persons illustrious in history. In 
the end, the hero, a man of prodigious valor and most 
exemplary honor, weds the heroine, who is equally 
skilled in the artificial code of honor, while the deaths 
of the ambitious villain and the evil princess, in love 
with the hero and seeking revenge on the heroine, pro- 
vide a tragic catastrophe. The persons are usually 
historical, English, Classical, or Eastern, and a little 



THE HEROIC PLAYS 255 

historical fact was intended to give a kind of grandeur 
to the story. The Alexanders and Montezumas, however, 
have manners and sentiments drawn partly from the 
courts of Louis and Charles and partly from the world 
of romance. The curious conception of honor as super- 
human valor and magnanimity combined with formal 
propriety leads to impossibilities like those in a child's 
book of wonders. Duels and rescues take the place of 
pitched fields; the valorous champion puts to rout an 
army, exchanges compliments and courtesies with the 
grace of a fashion-plate, boasts and rants in Cambyses' 
vein, and is near to expire in an ecstasy of declamation 
when the heroine extends her hand for him to kiss. The 
two rival lovers and the two rival ladies generally play 
their game of jealousy, ambition, and wounded honor 
during a conquest or a siege ; but world and empire count 
for naught. Amor vincit omnia. 

A mere summary of their leading traits may suggest, 
what a careful examination of the various representatives 
of the class will confirm, that the heroic plays were by 
no means a fresh importation from France, but rather 
a result of tendencies distinctly manifest in the English 
drama, at least since the Beaumont-Fletcher romances.^ 
jThe genre of heroic romances begun by Beaumont and 
Letcher, continued in tragedy and especially in tragi- 
comedy by Fletcher, Massinger, and Shirley, here takes 
a further but not very diverse development under the 

^ Cf. James W. Tupper, Relation of the Heroic Play to the Romances 
of Beaumont and Fletcher. Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 1905. 



256 TRAGEDY 

spell of French romance and drama. The conflicts of 
honor, the rivalries in love, the few types of character 
constantly recurring, the extraordinary surprises and 
discoveries, the women, sentimental and sensational, 
offered nothing new in English drama. The avoidance of 
bloodshed, the observance of poetic justice, the exalta- 
tion of love as the whole theme, the preference for the 
sensational and astounding rather than the natural or 
^ inevitable, have all been found distinguishing drama 
/C since Fletcher?) On the other hand, the hateful intrigue 
and abnormal lust, the horrors and gloom of Webster 
and Ford found little place in the heroic plays. One 
survival from the revenge plays, however, took on new 
life. Ghosts became as numerous and voluble as in the 
days of Kyd. But in the main the heroic plays represent 
the continuance of the heroic romance and tragicomedy 
corrected in accord with French standards of dramatic 
art and French conceptions of gallantry and heroism. 

It is in this aspect that they are of the most interest 
in the history of English tragedy. They are not a freak 
variation but a species lineally related to those which 
precede and follow. They carry the restriction and con- 
ventionalization of the material of tragedy much farther 
than did the plays of Shirley and his contemporaries; 
and, somewhat before Racine, they confine the main 
course of tragedy to sentimental love. Though their 
main innovation, the employment of rhyme, did not 
prevail, and though their changes in technic were re- 
jected by many later Restoration dramatists, yet they 



THE HEROIC PLAYS 257 

were a powerful force in habituating the theatre to the 
structure and methods of French tragedy and in pro- 
moting the triumph of these methods in the next century. 
They also mark a further change in the conception of 
the field and functions of tragedy. The result of devel- 
opments from tragicomedy rather than from tragedy, 
they exhibit a blending of the two forms and a redivision 
along new lines. Before the Restoration, nearly all trage- 
dies had presented a mixture of comedy or of farce. 
Tragicomedy had been distinguished from tragedy not 
by the presence of comedy but by the fact that its leading 
persons were brought near to death yet saved for a happy 
ending. Moreover, tragicomedies as a class developed 
along the lines of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances. 
The heroic plays inherited the traits of this class and also 
to some extent the happy endings. In some, as Orrery's 
"Henry V," there is no suffering and everything turns 
out well ; in others, as Orrery's later plays, there is blood- 
shed enough ; but in nearly all death is visited only on the 
evil ; the heroic are married. All plays with heroic themes, 
however, were called tragedies. There was no hint of 
heroic comedy as in France. The distinction between 
tragedy and comedy, which the Restoration drama 
drew much more closely than the Elizabethan, came to 
depend less on the presence of deaths or of an unhappy 
ending, and more on the nature of the material and form. 
After the decline of the heroic plays, tragedy returned, 
as we shall see, to bloodshed, deaths, and horrors, but 
meantime the heroic plays had emphasized as essential 



258 TRAGEDY 

certain elements that long continued their ascendency 
in both critical and popular views of tragedy. Hence- 
forth every one associated with tragedy heroic actions, 
illustrious persons, verse, whether rhymed or blank, 
a love story, and an inflated diction. The curious heroic 
rant, indeed, supplied a vocabulary and a manner that 
lasted long after the jingle of the rhyming couplets 
had been abandoned. Its "furies," "vows," "chains," 
"transports," "ecstasies," and "Etnas burning within 
the breast" remained the language of despairing inno- 
cence and palpitating passion. Tragic became almost 
synonjTnous with artificial and inflated. 

A worthier achievement must also be credited to the 
heroic plays. The spacious realms of romance which 
the Elizabethans had loved were closing their gates to 
the imagination of the later seventeenth century. Even 
Shakespeare's isles of the blest that so delighted Eliza- 
beth and James were strangely inaccessible to Restora- 
tion fancy, which took pleasure in only the " Merry Wives 
of Windsor" among his comedies. The narrowing of 
romance had been manifest in the drama since 1600, 
and it was a theatrical and artificial domain of thrills, 
sentiments, and honor that the Restoration received for 
its heritage. Poor enough as is this kingdom, absurd its 
inhabitants, it is still the land of the wonderful and im- 
possible, and its monarchs now and then remind us of 
Tamburlaine and Hotspur. At the time of Wycherley's 
comedies and Rochester's patronage of literature, men 
and women sighed and thrilled with Albumazor, dreamed 



DRYDEN 259 

of love, and fancied themselves kings and queens in 
China and Peru. When Romance was banished from 
other forms of literature, — unless in pastoral or opera, 
— tragedy still remained dedicated to the banished 
goddess, and in its precincts scanty flames still burned 
on the altars of heroism, enthusiasm, romantic aspira- 
tion, and extravagant love. 

The rise and wane of the heroic plays is sufficiently 
illustrated in the career of their chief exponent. After 
his "Indian Emperor" (1665), Dryden turned in "Secret 
Love" (1667) to tragicomedy with a mixture of verse, 
rhyme, and prose and a mixture of heroic and lively 
comedy. After various comedies and the adaptation of 
"The Tempest," "Tyrannic Love" (1669) and "The 
Conquest of Granada " (1669) accomplished the full 
triumph of rhymed verse and "the grand scale." At 
times Dryden*s rapidity and vigor almost justify the 
rhymed couplets and redeem the absurdities of the 
conventions. It was in the Epilogue to "The Conquest" 
that he attacked the Elizabethans, vaunting the superi- 
ority of an age when 

" Our ladies and our men now speak more wit 
In conversation, than those poets writ." 

In 1671 came the burlesque "Rehearsal," which, if its 
attack did not centre on heroic plays, made Dryden and 
the popular "Conquest of Granada" the butts of its 
most telling fun. Then followed Dryden's "Essay of 
Heroic Plays," two comedies, his inexcusable tragedy 
of " Amboyna " (written in a month to support the war 



260 TRAGEDY 

with the Dutch, yet, in conformity to the fashion, tracing 
the Dutch atrocities to a heroic love) , and the opera based 
on Milton's "Paradise Lost." In 1675 came "Aureng 
Zebe," the last of his heroic plays, without supernatu- 
ral machinery, and somewhat tamed in style. 

The vogue of the heroic play was about over. In 
1678 came Rymer's attempt at a model heroic tragedy 
and his "Tragedies of the Last Age," a severe attack 
upon the Elizabethan drama from the point of view of 
extreme pseudo-classicism. But in the same year was 
acted Dryden's " All for Love," in blank verse, with a 
preface extolling Shakespeare, rejecting the models of 
the ancients as " too little for English tragedy," discard- 
ing " the nicety of manners of the French," yet claiming 
credit for an observance of the unities. This was the one 
play in which, as he declared, Dryden followed his own 
bent unheedful of stage fashions, and it seems to have 
set the fashion and led the way back to blank verse and 
to Shakespeare. Rhymed plays continued to appear occa- 
sionally, but blank verse was henceforth recognized as 
the proper medium for tragedy. 

Even Dryden's praise of Shakespeare is modified by 
his respect for French rules, and by the prevailing opin- 
ion that Shakespeare's genius lacked the improvements 
readily secured by an application of the accepted formu- 
las of art. That a certain improvement is accomplished 
cannot be denied. The incoherent profusion of scenes, 
the host of distracting incidents are reduced to order, 
the unities of time and place give a directness and rapid- 



DRYDEN 261 

ity to the action that "Antony and Cleopatra" greatly 
lacks. In characterization and poetry Dry den's play 
is, to be sure, not comparable with Shakespeare's, but 
in both respects it far surpasses the numerous other 
English dramas on the subject. This is faint praise. 
By following Shakespeare without imitating him, and 
by adapting a play to the stage requirements of the day 
without bowing to the absurdities of the heroic models, 
Dryden succeeded in producing a great and original 
poetical drama. Not in response to mere theatrical fashion 
or to French taste or theory, but in response to the 
inspiration of Shakespeare came the finest product of 
Restoration tragedy. 

In this same year as " All for Love " appeared " (Edi- 
pus," written in collaboration with Lee, in which the 
authors brought to their classical model the methods of 
the Elizabethans. Eurydice and Adrastus furnish the 
necessary love story, and Creon becomes the hateful 
rival and intriguing villain. The declamation sometimes 
shows Dryden at his best, the bombast and horrors are 
in Lee's worst vein. In the next year appeared Diy- 
den's improvement of "Troilus and Cressida" with his 
careful essay on " The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy," 
in which he criticises after the fashion set by Rymer the 
errors of Shakespeare and Fletcher, insists on the neces- 
sity of unity, order, and greatness in action, and praises 
the excellence of Fletcher and especially of Shakespeare 
in character and passion. Nowhere else, perhaps, has 
Dryden expressed so discriminatingly and so finally his 



262 TRAGEDY 

own views and, on the whole, the views of his age, 
on tragedy. Shakespeare's greatness is recognized as 
preeminent in the presentation of character and passion ; 
his faults in coherence and unity of structure and his 
archaism in manners and proprieties are admitted. 

From this time on Dryden's contributions to the drama 
were less frequent. In "The Spanish Fryar" (1681), 
he added the best Restoration example of tragicomedy, 
availing himself of Fletcher's example, a double plot, 
and a happy ending. "The Duke of Guise" (1682), a 
political allegory, written in collaboration with Lee, 
deserves little consideration as satire or drama. After 
two operas and an absence of several years from the 
stage, came "Don Sebastian" (1690), which Sir Walter 
Scott thought the best of his tragedies. It is heroic in 
its pairs of lovers and tangle of love and jealousy, and 
in the exploits, boasts, and love-making of the hero; 
French in its general structure; Elizabethan in its 
mixture of comedy, its use of horror and incest, and its 
imitation of Shakespeare. It recalls the tragedies before 
1642, with their heroic love after the style of Beaumont 
and Fletcher, their horrors and incest following the Web- 
sterian school, and their emulation of famous passages 
in Shakespeare. "Cleomenes" (1692), which repeats 
the Potiphar's wife story, is still more Elizabethan, and 
"Love Triumphant," a tragicomedy (1693), deals with 
an incestuous passion proved innocent at last, a motive 
very popular since "A King and No King." 

Dryden never gave the theatre a whole-hearted ser- 



THE RETURN TO SHAKESPEARE 263 

vice. Responding readily to its conditions, he wrote with 
facility and vigor comedies, tragedies, operas, and politi- 
cal allegories of the kind that changing fashion or patrons 
demanded. When, after a long slavery, he had acquired 
mastery of his art and confidence to lead rather than to 
follow, circumstances arose to call him away from the 
theatre. We may wish that he had earlier and oftener 
tried to do his best, as in " All for Love," " The Spanish 
Friar," and "Don Sebastian"; but his genius was not 
essentially dramatic, and we may not regret the time 
taken from the theatre for the Satires and Fables. His 
greatness can be best seen by comparison with the work 
of his contemporaries. Whatever he tried, he did on 
the whole better than they, and in comprehensiveness 
and adaptability as well as in sheer poetic faculty he was 
their master. 

Up to " Aureng Zebe " Dry den's tragedies reflected the 
prevailing fashion; his "Adl for Love" marked a turn- 
ing-point in the course of tragedy; and his criticism re- 
viewed, summed up, and discriminated the current views 
of Shakespeare and the French. His later work was less 
representative of the general course of the drama, yet 
the various species exhibited in his work recur in that of 
his contemporaries, and the partial return to Elizabethan 
methods that marks his latest plays is perhaps the leading 
characteristic of the last twenty years of the century. 

Crowne's "Thyestes" is the only attempt besides 
Dryden's " Orestes " to adapt a classical play to the popu- 
lar stage, and neither returns much nearer to the Greek 



264 TRAGEDY 

than Seneca. The only play closely modeled on the Greek 
is Milton's " Samson Agonistes." The preface renounces 
the stage with a scorn that includes not only the Restora- 
tion tragedies but apparently those of Shakespeare as 
well. Though the play stands by itself, it may be said 
to represent a tendency to turn to Greek rather than to 
French models, a tendency boasted of by Dryden and 
Crowne, and fully manifest in the next century. And it 
takes its place at the head of the numerous, if sporadic, 
tragedies on Greek models that extend from the Restora- 
tion to the present day. 

In the return to Shakespeare, Dryden's influence was 
more potent, though here, as in the case of the Greeks, 
an increased appreciation was shown partly through 
alterations and adaptations. Before "All for Love," 
only "Measure for Measure," "Macbeth," and "The 
Tempest" of Shakespeare's plays had suffered altera- 
tions, and in two of these Dryden had a share. In the 
four years after 1678, no less than ten alterations were 
produced, the majority of which long usurped the stage. 
The restorers, sincere enough in their admiration for 
Shakespeare, were following Dryden's precept and ex- 
ample, correcting Shakespeare's faults in diction or struc- 
ture, and preserving his poetry and characters. While 
their entire readiness to cut or to add resulted in part 
from ignorant vanity, it depended far more on their con- 
fidence in the panacea afforded by Art for all diseases 
of genius. Art, according to their prescription, was 
compounded of closeness of structure in the French 



THE RETURN TO SHAKESPEARE 265 

style and a declamatory vocabulary in accord with the 
latest pseudo-classic conventions. The alterations are 
so various in their audacities that a brief general descrip- 
tion is hardly possible. The main purpose in each case 
was the remaking of Shakespeare's disordered beauties 
into "a play," and, beyond the formulas of Art, the most 
usual improvement was the addition of a love story. 
Thus, Alcibiades marries the daughter of Timon, and 
Cordelia's loyalty is rewarded by the hand of Edgar. 
Perhaps the most that can be said for the restorers is, 
first, that they rescued for the stage some of the less 
dramatic plays, as "Troilus and Cressida," "Timon," 
"Henry IV," " Coriolanus," and "Cymbeline," and 
thereby greatly extended the knowledge and apprecia- 
tion of Shakespeare; and, second, that they left "Ham- 
let " and " Othello " untouched. Adaptations were made 
of practically all Elizabethan authors, and Shakespeare 
fared as his fellows. A more elaborate history of the 
drama than the present one might trace the changes in 
the conception of tragedy and in the taste of the theatres 
as indicated by these alterations. The main considera- 
tion here is that, however mutilated or embellished, a 
half dozen of his tragedies were among the favorite 
plays of the Restoration. Before the end of the century 
they had outclassed the other Elizabethan plays, even 
those of Beaumont and Fletcher, in popular regard. 
The Restoration did what his own age had not done ; it 
recognized Shakespeare's supremacy in English tragedy. 
It would be tedious to trace the infatuation for the 



266 TRAGEDY 

heroic plays and the partial return to the Elizabethans 
in the work of the various dramatists whose careers par- 
alleled Dryden's. His rival, Settle, wrote heroic plays, 
a sensational political play on the Whig side, "Pope 
Joan, or the Female Prelate," and a long series of tra- 
gedies and comedies extending well into the next century. 
John Crowne, another contemporary, began with tragic 
comedies and heroic rhymed plays, proceeded to Shake- 
spearean alterations, " Thyestes," and blank verse plays 
in the Elizabethan tradition, and ended his career with 
a rhymed "Caligula." Among those who in tragedy 
confined themselves mainly to adaptations or borrow- 
ings from the Elizabethans were Tate, Ravenscroft, 
and D'Urfey; and a group of women should be men- 
tioned, — Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Pix, and Mrs. 
Centlivre, — who in the later half of the period devoted 
considerable attention to tragedy without creating any 
marked departure from the commonplace. We must 
confine ourselves to the authors whose tragedies had a 
more extended interest. 

Nathaniel Lee wrote his first play in 1675, when he 
was eighteen years old, and produced ten tragedies, in 
addition to the two in which he collaborated with Dry- 
den, before the close of 1684, when he became insane. 
The first three, " Nero," " Sophonisba," and " Gloriana," 
were rhymed, but the fourth, "The Rival Queens" 
(1677), preceded Dryden in its return to blank verse and 
won an enormous success, maintaining itself on the stage 
long after the death of Betterton. His remaining tra- 



NATHANIEL LEE 267 

gedies were in blank verse, " Mithridates," "(Edipus/* 
" Theodosius," " Csesar Borgia," "Lucius Junius Bru- 
tus," "Duke of Guise," " Constantine," and "The 
Massacre of Paris," which with the tragicomedy "The 
Princess of Cleve" was acted after his release from the 
madhouse. 

All his plays are pretty much of a kind. The juvenile 
and worthless "Nero" unites the conventions of heroic 
love with the ghosts, lust, bloodshed, and madness of 
the later Elizabethan revenge plays. The later blank 
verse plays, though to a large extent based on French 
romances, envelop the love interest in a Tourneurian 
medley of depravity and horror. They revive the late 
Elizabethan type of tragedy that united the sentimental 
and the terrible and delighted to present loving and 
devoted womanhood in an environment of undiluted 
villany, abnormal lust, and physical torture. They add 
somewhat of the closeness of structure of French models, 
the spectacle of an improved stage that displays ballets 
and temples along with bloody heavens, human sacri- 
fice, and crucifixions, and a style that out-Herods the 
Elizabethans in the extravagance and vehemence of its 
rant. " Theodosius " tells of the fatal result of the rival 
love of brothers for the same woman; "Brutus" of the 
judicial murder of a son by a father; *' Csesar Borgia" 
introduces Machiavelli again as a machinating villain 
in a story of fraternal rivalry in love ; " Constantine " 
and " Gloriana " deal with the rival loves of son and 
father. This theme, a favorite with Lee, reappears in 



268 TRAGEDY 

" Mithridates/' the contents of which are fairly typical 
of the revolting intrigues to which Lee mainly confined 
himself. 

The leading persons are Mithridates, the lustful dotard; his 
two sons, Ziphares and Pharnaces; Monima, the gentle hero- 
ine, contracted to Mithridates ; Semandra, the chief heroine, in 
love with and loved by Ziphares; her father^ a noble soldier; 
and two conspiring villains. The Romans are at the gates of 
Synope, where the scene is placed. Pharnaces, at feud with his 
brother and desirous of Monima for himself, conspires with 
the villains to thwart the marriage of Mithridates to Monima 
and direct the passion of the king to Semandra. Mithridates 
condemns Ziphares to death and pursues Semandra, but is per- 
suaded to relent in order that Ziphares may lead the army 
against the Romans. Semandra and Ziphares exchange parting 
vows of fidelity as he leaves for battle. The conspirators again 
incite Mithridates ; and Semandra, in order to save the life of 
her lover, repulses him upon his return in triumph. In conse- 
quence he believes her false and leaves her in the power of 
his father. The fourth act opens with Mithridates, who has 
ravished Semandra, "encompassed with the ghosts of his sons, 
who set daggers to his breast and vanish." He is attacked by 
remorse ; Pharnaces betrays the city to the Romans ; Semandra 
and Ziphares have a last interview and commit suicide; Mith- 
ridates dies after condemning the captured conspirators and 
Pharnaces to execution. 

It is interesting to compare this with Racine's play 
of the same title and dealing with the same historical 
incidents, acted four years earlier. Though neither play 
represents its author at his best, and Lee's was appar- 
ently written without any knowledge of Racine's, the 
two illustrate the differences between the two theatres. 



OTWAY 269 

and may remind us how far Lee was from forsaking 
the English tradition for the French. In Racine, all the 
stage spectacles, temples, portents, and ghosts, all the 
horrors and frenzy are lacking; so, too, are the charac- 
ters of Archilaus the noble soldier and Semandra the 
all-important person in Lee. In addition to Mithridates, 
Monima, and the two sons, the only persons are two 
confidants and a servant. The intrigue is of the simplest. 
Monima, contracted to Mithridates, is loved by both of 
his sons and returns the love of Xiphares. In the end 
Pharnaces forsakes his father, who dies, leaving Monima 
and Xiphares to face impending ruin. Mithridates is 
not the lustful tyrant traditional on the English stage, 
but a monarch who cherishes great projects and counts 
magnanimity a royal duty. Nor is Pharnaces the tra- 
ditional English villain with accomplices, as in Lee, 
though he has a villain's part to play. The interest is 
psychological, centring on emotional crises in the lives 
of all, and without resort to sensationalism, horrors, or 
complication of incident. 

Otway, like Lee, began with rhymed plays, "Alci- 
biades" (1675) and "Don Carlos" (1676), the second 
winning an extraordinary and long-continued success 
on the stage. The next year appeared his "Titus and 
Berenice,'* a free and sympathetic translation of Ra- 
cine's "Berenice" that was surpassed in the favor of 
the theatre by Crowne's treatment of the same subject. 
After several comedies he followed the fashion for Shake- 
spearean adaptations in his " History and Fall of Caius 



270 TRAGEDY 

Marius " (1680).* This monstrous play, about half of 
which, as Otway acknowledged in his prologue, is from 
" Romeo and Juliet," provides a large mixture of comedy, 
and presents Juliet (Lavinia) dressed as a page, the 
servant of her lover, after the style of Beaumont and 
Fletcher's Bellario. For sixty years this play super- 
seded "Romeo and Juliet" upon the stage. Otway's two 
other tragedies, "The Orphan" (1680) and "Venice 
Preserved" (1682), are his masterpieces. They contin- 
ued to be stage favorites for a century and a half, and 
procured for Otway the place next to Shakespeare in 
the admiration of the eighteenth century. 

" Venice Preserved " may be classed with the many 
tragedies of the day that maintain the Elizabethan tra- 
ditions. These are manifest in the general structure, 
the large number of actors, the changing scenes, the 
gross comedy, the abundance of incidents, the terrors, 
ghosts, and madness. Not only the frequent reminis- 
cences of Shakespeare and Fletcher, but the whole con- 
ception and treatment testify to an inspiration from the 
earlier and better days of the drama. 

The story, not long ago too well known to need retelling, 
relates how Jaffier, in poverty and desperation, is induced to 
join a conspiracy against the state, and is then persuaded by 
his wife, Belvidera, to save the state and her father by turning 
informer. He seeks to sacrifice himself for the friend whom he 
has betrayed, and in the end stabs both himself and his friend 

^ Ward (iii, 415) is in error in crediting public taste with condemna- 
tion of this play. Lavinia seems to have been one of Mrs. Barry's most 
successful parts. 



OTWAY 271 

upon the scaffold. A curiously Elizabethan prolongation of the 
catastrophe follows in the apparition of the ghosts of the friends, 
and the madness and death of Belvidera. 

The essentials of great tragedy, of Shakespearean tra- 
gedy, are here. The opposition of character, the struggle 
of the generous but pliable Jaffier under the conflicting 
influences of his wife and the steadfast * Roman ' Pierre, 
the joy and tenderness and ruin that come with his love 
for Belvidera, are all drawn with a truth of passion in 
conception and language that reaches the heart. "Na- 
ture is there," wrote Dryden, "which is the greatest 
beauty." Marred as a whole by buffoonery and excess, 
the play is still among the two or three best tragedies of 
the Restoration. If it were all equal to the tremendous 
fourth act, Otway would be sure of a place among the 
immortals. 

Marked by the same power of swaying the emotions 
of tenderness and pity, "The Orphan" attains these 
effects by means of the situations rather than through 
the study of motives. The plot deals with the rivalry 
of two brothers in love with their father's ward. She is 
secretly married to one ; the other substitutes himself by 
trick on the marriage night. The situation, which has 
parallels in preceding tragedy, is abhorrent enough to 
kill all interest in the persons concerned; but Otway's 
power to depict love and distress triumphs over one's 
repugnance. The play is remarkable in many ways. Its 
few characters, its observance of the unities, its con- 
finement of the action, give it the simplicity and direct- 



272 TRAGEDY 

ness of French tragedy. Its theme and its poetry recall 
Elizabethan rather than Restoration examples. But 
it departs from the canons of either theatre in presenting 
neither historical persons, nobles, kings, nor illustrious 
actions. Based on a story, supposedly of fact, related in 
a contemporary pamphlet, it merely transfers the scene 
to Bohemia, without adding the usual accessories of 
tragedy. Though it keeps something of a court setting 
and does not venture into middle-class society, it is like 
the Elizabethan plays of crime in its presentation of 
contemporaneous fact, and like Heywood's "A Woman 
Killed with Kindness " in telling a story of domestic 
distress. It might by a little extension of the term be 
called a domestic tragedy, and it still further departs 
from the canons in relating the misery of an innocent 
sufferer who is the victim of a cruel mistake. Otway 
should, therefore, be remembered as a dramatist who, 
in a time when tragedy was largely artificial, imitative, 
and conventional, painted suffering and tenderness with 
truth to nature, and who violated the accepted rules 
of his art in order to reach the hearts of his audience. 
That he could not also escape the moral perversion of 
taste that marked his time has brought its punishment 
in the final neglect of his masterpieces ; but it is a sign 
of genius to turn away from heroic plays, Racine, and 
Shakespeare, to write plays different from any written 
before, and to stir all men's hearts for over a century. 
Of the many dramatists who wrote tragedies in the 
last decade of the seventeenth century and bridged the 



BANKS 273 

way from the age of Dryden to the age of Pope, only 
Banks, Southerne, and Congreve produced plays of con- 
tinuing popularity and influence through the eighteenth 
century. Banks ended a prolific career with " Cyrus the 
Great, or the Tragedy of Love " in 1696, but his popu- 
larity was mainly due to his three English historical 
tragedies, "Virtue Betrayed, or Anne Bullen," "The 
Island Queens" (Elizabeth and Mary Stuart), and "The 
Unhappy Favorite" (the Earl of Essex). These plays 
are interesting as an illustration of the survival on the 
stage of a dramatic species in a debased form. Though 
in blank verse, their material is that of the heroic play; 
their formula, much love-making and a pretense of porten- 
tous events ; their persons, rivals in love, — two men with 
the same woman or two women with the same man, — 
a wicked minister, a revengeful woman, and the queen 
at the centre of the stage. There is no comedy, no 
physical horrors, and even the portents are reduced to a 
peculiar decorum: — 

"Last night no sooner was I laid to rest 
But just three drops of blood fell from my nose." 

The construction is on French models with few actors, 
continuity of scenes, and observance of the unities. 
Puerile in conception and more ridiculous in their bom- 
bast than Fielding's burlesque, they have enough ra- 
pidity of action, vivacity of claptrap, and extravagance 
of changing emotions to account for their stage success. 
Thomas Southerne finished " Cleomenes " for Dryden, 
with whom he was closely associated, and his tragedies 



274 TRAGEDY 

follow Dryden's later work in maintaining the Eliza- 
bethan traditions of blank verse, comedy, double plots, 
shifting scenes, horrors, and persons of varied ranks. 
His " Loyal Brother" (1682) is wholly commonplace, 
and "The Spartan Dame" (1719) and "The Fate of 
Capua" (1700) do not depart from usual themes and 
methods, though the latter is in some respects Southerners 
best play; but his two most successful plays, "The Fatal 
Marriage" (1694) and "Oroonoko" (1696), both based 
on novels by Mrs. Behn, present decided innovations 
in theme. "Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave" contains 
much comedy, and has little merit besides the novelty 
of the story, presenting the virtues of a negro slave. " The 
Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery" introduces 
the Enoch Arden story, attached to an outrageous comic 
underplot derived in part from Fletcher's "Night- 
walker." 

In the main plot, Biron, oldest son of Baldwin, has been cap- 
tured by pirates and is supposed to be dead, his letters being 
kept secret and answered by his villanous brother, Carlos, 
who urges his wife Isabella to marry. After Baldwin, instigated 
by Carlos, has thrust her out from his house, she accepts the 
devoted Villeroy. Biron returns; she goes mad in a scene of 
great imaginative power; Carlos and his assistants endeavor 
to kill Biron, who is rescued by the returning Villeroy. Biron, 
however, dies ; and an accomplice of Carlos, tortured upon the 
rack (on the stage), confesses and exposes Carlos. Then "enter 
Isabella distracted, her little son running in before, being 
afraid of her." She stabs herself. 

Like Otway's "Orphan," this is virtually a domestic 



CONGREVE 275 

tragedy, for there are no interests of state or court, and 
our sympathy is centred solely on the innocent distress 
of the heroine. Like Otway, again, Southerne gains his 
greatest effects by an appeal to pity. The sentimentality 
that we attribute to the days of Richardson's " Clarissa " 
earlier triumphed on the stage in the heroines of Lee, 
Otway, and Southerne. 

Not less successful on the stage than the plays of 
Banks and Southerne was the single tragedy of Con- 
greve. First acted in 1697, "The Mourning Bride" 
continued without alteration through the next century, 
and furnished Mrs. Siddons with one of her greatest parts. 
Congreve's remarkable dramatic ingenuity was skillfully 
exercised in combining all the elements that the average 
audience delighted in, and yet presenting these draped 
sufficiently to avoid offending the judicious. Classical 
form and technic permit a sensational and gruesome 
fifth act; dignified and facile verse gives way at times 
to outrageous rant; the usual plot of the rival ladies and 
rival lovers is ingeniously complicated to supply sus- 
pense, surprise, and a happy ending. 

It is the day after the death of King Anselmo, prisoner of 
Manuel, King of Granada, whose daughter Almerra has been 
secretly married to Alphonso, son of Anselmo, and then sepa- 
rated from him by shipwreck. She confesses this marriage to 
her confidant, mourns Anselmo, and declares that she will 
never yield to her father and marry Garcia, son of the premier 
Gonzales. King Manuel returns from battle, having slain the 
Moorish king, and brings the queen Zara and other prisoners, 
among them a valiant warrior, Osmyn — Alphonso in dis- 



276 TRAGEDY 

guise. At the tomb of Anselmo, Osmyn-Alphonso and Almeira 
meet and dissolve in grief. 

The king is in love with Zara and Zara with Osmyn. She 
offers to procure Osmyn's escape and to fly with him ; but later 
on, discovering him with Almeira, she betrays them to the 
king. The king and Zara are now torn by love and jealousy. 
She obtains permission to have Osmyn strangled by one of her 
mutes, and the suspicious Gonzales assumes the costume of 
the mute in order to make sure of the execution. Meanwhile 
the king, learning of Zara's passion for Osmyn, determines to 
have him killed and then assume his clothing in order to con- 
front Zara. Osmyn makes his escape ; Gonzales kills the king, 
taking him for Osmyn ; Zara, taking the body to be Osmyn's, 
drinks poison; Almeira is about to make the same mistake, 
when the soldiers enter with Osmyn at their head. 

Perhaps no other single play is so representative of the 
various features of Restoration tragedy. It is not a 
tragedy, at all if one insists that tragedy should be logical 
and psychological; but it was praised by Voltaire and 
Dr. Johnson and approved by the London public for over 
a century. 

Although the years from 1660 to 1700 offer little in 
tragedy that has proved of permanent value, they mark 
the continuance of the genre in a full tide of popularity . 
Probably in no forty years since then have so many origi- 
nal tragedies appeared in the London theatres; certainly 
in no forty years since have so many Elizabethan trage- 
dies been revived. Tragedies and tragicomedies together 
are in numbers almost equal to the comedies which we 
think of as especially distinguishing the Restoration stage. 
There was hardly a writer for the theatre who did not try 



RESTORATION TRAGEDY 277 

his hand at tragedy. In spite of the rivalry of opera and 
comedy, it continued from Davenant to Southeme to 
delight the age. Its literary as well as its theatrical im- 
portance was maintained. Noble authors as well as 
the greatest wits, the Earl of Orrery, Granville, Dryden, 
and Congreve, courted the tragic muse. Tragedy writ- 
ten for the popular stage had, indeed, a literary emi- 
nence hardly recognized before, even in the generation 
preceding the Civil War. In comparison with their 
Elizabethan predecessors the tragedies of this time are, 
in fact, literary rather than popular. They draw their 
themes from French or English plays ; they display little 
innovation and still less study of life; they adopt rules 
and regulations; they are conventional and artificial. 
They respond to literary traditions ; they hardly express 
the sentiments or ideas of their age. Some exceptions 
there are; but even plays like those of Banks, which 
gained theatrical success ^^ithout literary distinction, re- 
sembled their more worthy brethren in their adherence to 
convention rather than nature. 

In the main Restoration tragedy must be regarded 
as a continuation and development of Elizabethan. The 
influence of Beaumont and Fletcher continued in the 
heroic plays and their after-effects. The wane of the 
heroic plays brought a return to the Elizabethans, and, 
notably in Lee, to some of the most characteristic fea- 
tures of the later revenge plays. The increasing influence 
of Shakespeare was felt not only in the worthy emula- 
tion of " All for Love " and in the various adaptations, but 



278 TRAGEDY 

also in the debates of the critics and through the whole 
warp and woof of tragedy. But what were preeminent 
in many of Shakespeare's contemporaries as in Shake- 
speare himself, poetry, passion, and characterization, 
were beyond the reach of any of the playwrights except 
Dryden, Lee, and Otway at their best. The worst ex- 
cesses, the most undesirable conventions of the Eliza- 
bethans, excited imitation as much as their excellences. 
The Elizabethan bloom had gone to seed in unfavorable 
soil. It is not strange that after the horrors, bloodshed, 
and supernaturalism of Lee and Otway, and after the 
gross buffoonery that spoils tragedies otherwise so noble 
as "Don Sebastian," "Venice Preserved," and "The 
Fatal Marriage," there should have followed in the open- 
ing years of the next century a marked reaction to the 
decencies of French tragedy. In the Restoration period, 
however, the French influence, though manifest in the 
great vogue of the heroic plays and in a wide adoption 
of French ideas of structure and propriety, won only 
a partial triumph in checking and modifying the Eliza- 
bethan tradition. Its effect in supplying fresh incentives 
for worthy endeavor was slight, indeed, hardly discernible 
unless in the influence of Racine upon Otway. Tragedy, 
then, as handed down to the eighteenth century, was 
not a fixed and definite form, though measurably more 
so than a century before. It was still a conglomerate of 
various forms and tendencies, mingling relics of the 
medieval stage with reminiscences of Shakespeare and 
the manners of the court of Louis XIV. The sentimental 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 

tragedies of Southerne and Otway, telling stories of dis- 
tressed womanhood and exciting pity without any acces- 
sories of grandeur, were perhaps the most independent 
achievements of Restoration tragedy; the preservation 
of Shakespearean influence was its most important. But, 
in comparison with a century before, the changes in 
tragedy that were most noticeable and permanent were 
the restriction of themes, the narrowing of structure, and 
the conventionality and artificiality that extended to 
character and language as well as to themes and plots. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ward continues to supply the best history of the drama. Henceforth 
the standard authority for the history of the stage is Genest's Some 
Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830, 10 
vols., Bath, 1832. This is an invaluable collection of: facts in regard 
to plays and actors, superseding preceding books on the subject and 
supplying material for subsequent ones. Other histories of the theatre 
are: Chetwood's General History of the Stage (1749); The Dramatic 
Mirror (1808) ; D. E. Baker's Biographica Dramatica (1764, cootinued 
by Isaac Reed and Stephen Jones, 3d ed. 1812) ; Dibdin's Complete 
History of the English Stage (1800). Lowe's Bibliographical Account 
of English Dramatic Literature (1888) will guide in their use. More 
recent histories of the theatre are : P. Fitzgerald's New History of the 
Stage (1882) ; Lowe's new edition of Doran's Their Majesties' Servants 
(1888); and H. B. Baker's The London Stage, 1576-1903 (1904). 

Works of the Restoration period on the drama or theatre include 
a number of Dryden's essays, notably. The Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 
The Defence of the Essay, The Defence of the Epilogue, Of Heroic Plays, 
and The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy; Wright's Historia His- 
trionica (1699, reprinted in Dodsley and in Gibber's Life); Edward 
Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum (1675); Langbaine's Account of the 
English Dramatic Poets (1691); Rymer's Tragedies of the Last Age 
(1678) and A Short View of Tragedy (1693) ; Dennis's The Impartial 
Critic (1693); and Jeremy Collier's Short View of the Immorality and 



280 TRAGEDY 

Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). Downes's Roscius Anglicantis 
(1708, facsimile reprint, 1886) also contains interesting information on 
the period. Corneille, Boileau, Saint Evremond, the Abbe D'Aubignac, 
and Rapin are the French critics of most influence on the drama of 
this period, especially Rapin, whose Reflexions sur la poetique was trans- 
lated by Rymer (1674). J. E. Spingarn's Seventeenth Century Critical 
Essays (now in press) will contain all the critical work of the period of 
importance, with a valuable discussion of its relation to French criticism. 

There are collected editions of the works of most of the Restoration 
dramatists, but none of Settle or Banks. The Scott-Saintsbury edition 
is the standard for Dry den. Individual plays are to be found in many 
collections: The Modern British Drama, 5 vols. (1811); Oxberr/s 
New English Drama (1812-25); Mrs. Inchbald's Modern Theatre 
(1811); Bell's British Theatre (1797) and supplement. Dramatists of the 
Restoration, edited by Maidment and Logan, 14 vols., Edinburgh, 1872- 
79, includes the plays of Crowne, Davenant, Tatham, and John Wilson. 
Ward and the English Drama (by K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, op. 
cit.) direct to editions and monographs of the individual authors of 
this period. 

J. J. Jusserand's Shakespeare en France (1898), Professor Louns- 
bury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, and Miss Canfield's Corneille 
and Racine in England (1905) are important for certain phases of the 
drama. Concerning the heroic plays there is a considerable literature ; 
see, especially, P. Holzhausen on Dryden's heroic plays, Englische 
Studien, vols, xiii, xv, and xvi (1890-92); L. N. Chase, The English 
Heroic Play (1903) ; J. W. Tupper, The Relation of the Heroic Play 
to Beaumont and Fletcher, Mod. Lang. Assn. Publ. 1905. C. G. Child, 
The Rise of the Heroic Play, Mod. Lang. Notes, 1904. Alex. Beljame's 
Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au xviiie siecle (1881) 
deals fully with Dryden and has an elaborate bibliography. 




CHAPTER IX 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

N tragedy the division between the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries is less marked than 
that which distinguishes in general the liter- 
atures of the Restoration and the Augustan 
eras. Yet by 1700 most of the leading dramatists of the 
preceding generation had ceased to write for the stage; 
and the death of Dryden marked the end of the old, as 
the beginning of the reign of Anne, with its important 
changes in politics, society, and literature, marked the 
beginning of a new development in tragedy. The attack 
of Jeremy Collier (1698) was also an important land- 
mark in the history of the drama, assisting in a notable 
change from the preceding licentiousness and toward 
a moralized and sentimentalized comedy. A similar 
change in tragedy was its most apparent departure from 
Restoration models. Chastened language and a stricter 
moral censorship of both subjects and sentiments re- 
flected that refinement of which the age of Addison and 
Pope was wont to boast. 

The theatrical conditions governing the reign of 
Queen Anne were not very different from those of the 
Restoration. There was a general complaint, as there 
has been ever since, that operas and spectacles were 



282 TRAGEDY 

crowding the serious drama out of favor, but there was 
still abundant opportunity to see many of the best plays 
of the Elizabethan and Restoration periods. Of trage- 
dies, we find in a single season, 1703-04, "Hamlet," 
" Othello," " Julius Caesar," and alterations of " Mac- 
beth," "Lear," "Richard III," "Timon," and "Titus 
Andronicus," Shirley's "Traitor," and Beaumont and 
Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," " Valentinian," and "A 
King and No King," "The Loyal Subject," and other 
of their tragicomedies. " Henry VIII," " Rollo," " Bon- 
duca," and "Philaster" were performed within the 
next few years. Of Restoration tragedies, Banks's " Un- 
happy Favorite" and Lee's "Rival Queens" were per- 
haps the most popular, and other plays of Banks, Lee, 
Otway, Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne were acted 
yearly. A number of the heroic plays also still kept the 
stage, including Howard's "Indian Queen," Dryden's 
"Conquest of Granada," "Indian Emperor," and "Au- 
reng Zebe." Throughout the century both the London 
and the provincial theatres presented each year a large 
number of old plays, including many of these already 
mentioned. The Elizabethan tragedies, except Shake- 
speare's, and the heroic plays gradually disappeared 
from the regular repertoire, but Shakespeare's tragedies 
steadily gained in popularity, and "The Unhappy 
Favorite" (rewritten as "The Earl of Essex"), "The 
Orphan," "Venice Preserved," "Oronooko," "The 
Fatal Marriage " (altered as " Isabella ") , " All for Love," 
and " The Mourning Bride " maintained their places into 



NICHOLAS ROWE 283 

the nineteenth century. Tragedy thus had its perma- 
nent representatives in this group of stock plays, to 
which newcomers gained admission only by marked 
success on the stage. 

To these stock plays no writer of the eighteenth cen- 
tury made more notable additions than Nicholas Rowe, 
the first editor of Shakespeare, whose work began the 
century, borrowed much from his predecessors, and 
yet introduced most of the changes which distinguish 
the eighteenth century type of tragedy from that of the 
Restoration or Elizabethan period. His first play was 
followed by four other tragedies by 1707, and, after 
an interval of seven years, by " Jane Shore " (1714) and 
"Lady Jane Grey" (1715). Of the first five, three are 
of little interest except as representing common varia- 
tions of the prevailing type. They all relate love stories 
of rivalry and intrigue among heroic personages, and all 
observe the French proprieties in structure. " The Ambi- 
tious Stepmother," like so many predecessors and suc- 
cessors, places the scene in an oriental court ; " Ulysses " 
more daringly invades Homeric territory ; and " The Royal 
Convert" turns to early English history, a field which 
literary patriotism was appropriating for tragedy. 

In "Tamerlane" (1702), love and intrigue play sub- 
ordinate parts to the political and moral interest which 
the author endeavored to centre upon his protagonist. 
Tamerlane, who, we are told, was patterned on William 
III, is an extremely pious pagan, who overtops conquest 
with mercy and adorns every occasion with a moralizing 



284 TRAGEDY 

discourse. Had he ever encountered his Marlowean 
namesake, he would have shed the pitying tear. In gen- 
eral, the structure is on the French plan, but the large 
number of characters and the considerable amount of 
action recall Elizabethan models. The verse, too, with 
its feminine endings, occasionally reminds one of Fletcher, 
and the figures of speech are feebly patterned on Shake- 
speare, while the ravings of Bajazet are worthy of Nat 
Lee. The play, long acted every November fifth, seems 
to have owed its great success to its high moral tone and 
its patriotic eloquence. It set the key for many similarly 
patriotic tunes. 

"The Fair Penitent" (1703) links itself with the two 
later " She-tragedies," to borrow a term from one of their 
epilogues. Its prologue proclaims an innovation from 
the usual tragic themes of monarchs' cares and lost 
royalty, because — 

" We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share 



Therefore an humbler Theme our Author chose, 
A melancholy Tale of Private Woes." 

This was the play of which Dr. Johnson said that 
" scarcely any work of any poet is at once so interesting 
by the fable and so delightful by the language." The 
domestic theme, the female protagonist, and the insistent 
appeal to pity were all already familiar in the plays of 
Otway and Southerne. Rowe gave these a larger popu- 
larity; and from his Lothario and Calista Richardson 
received suggestions for Lovelace and Clarissa. 



NICHOLAS ROWE 285 

" The Fair Penitent " is also interesting as an adapta- 
tion of an Elizabethan play. Rowe borrowed the plot 
and some hints in the characterization from " The Fatal 
Dowry " of Massinger and Field, but he refashioned the 
scenes and rewrote the verse in accord with current 
modes. While " The Fatal Dowry " is by no means one 
of the best of Elizabethan tragedies, a comparison of 
it with Rowe's version of the story emphasizes the losses 
which tragedy was suffering as it moved farther and 
farther from its old traditions.^ "The Fair Penitent" 
reduces the host of dramatis fersonae to eight, the fair 
penitent, her husband, his rival, his sister, and three 
friends or confidants, and confines the action to one place 
and something over twenty-four hours. Much of the 
action of the early play is omitted or reduced to narra- 
tive, including all the opening scenes of the funeral of the 
husband's father and the origin of his friendship with 
the father of the heroine. The various attempts of the 
faithful friend to mend matters are also restricted, and 
Massinger's usual trial scene omitted. The result of 
these structural changes is a loss of verisimilitude. The 
old play had something of the illusion of a true history; 
in *' The Fair Penitent " the action, though narrowed, 
is still far too much for the time supposed, and improba- 
bilities are solved by well-worn theatrical devices. The \J ^ 
guilt is discovered by means of a lost letter and an over- f^ 

^ For comparisons of the two plays, see Sir Walter Scott's "Essay 
on the Drama," Cmnberland's Observer, Nos. 77, 78, 79; and GifiFord's 
introduction to his edition of Massinger. 



286 TRAGEDY 

heard conversation, and throughout Hterary and moral 
proprieties lead to a reduction of action and an increase 
of talk. This is well illustrated in the scenes in which 
the husband confronts the guilty wife. In "The Fair 
Penitent," the wife and Lothario are having a final meet- 
ing, or declamation contest, on the day after the wedding. 
She upbraids him and incidentally relates the story of 
her seduction; the husband overhears. In "The Fatal 
Dowry,'* the husband comes unexpectedly to the house 
of Aymer where the lovers have an assignation. Aymer 
is attempting to divert him with music, when a laugh 
is heard within, — more music, and the lady's laugh 
again. The husband rushes from the stage and returns 
driving in the lovers. Further, the restricted action of 
Rowe's play causes a conventionalizing of the characters. 
The wife and her lover are shallow persons in Mas- 
singer's play, but they have some plausibility. In Rowe, 
he becomes the avenging rival; she, an impossible de- 
claimer, now the evil woman of the heroic plays, now the 
lachrymose moralizer. The moralizing, emphatic in all 
of Rowe's plays, also adds to the general artificiality. 
Calista dies after most voluble repentance, and her hus- 
band matches her " groan for groan and tear for tear." 
If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, 
and not especially edifying, it is yet occasionally intense 
in its emotional effect and maintains some verisimilitude 
of life and character. Rowe's artificially ingenious and 
morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling. 
Its conventional persons and scenes do not depict life 



NICHOLAS ROWE 287 

by action; they declaim sentimentally a story that ends 
in a sermon. In its conventionalization and moraliza- 
tion Rowe illustrates the main tendencies of the drama, 
tendencies derived largely from the French, but it must 
not be thought that either his play or the majority in the 
century altogether forsake English models for French. 
Rowe's declamations and laments, immeasurably in- 
ferior in all respects, differ essentially from Racine's 
in that they fail to disclose psychological moments and 
emotional crises. They also differ from Racine in their 
retention of spectacle, incident, and business in accord 
with English tradition. Like other of his contemporaries 
and successors, Rowe was prone to copy the Elizabethans 
at their worst. The most Elizabethan thing in his play, 
though not found in " The Fatal Dowry," is the setting 
for the long famous fifth act. "The Scene is a Room 
hung with Black; on one side, Lothario's body on a Bier; 
on the other, a Table with a Scull and other Bones, a 
Book, and a Lamp on it. Calista is discovered on a 
Couch in Black, her Hair hanging loose and disordered : 
After Musick and a Song, she rises and comes forward " 
— and begins her midnight soliloquy. Perhaps, as Dr. 
Ward surmises, this business went far to give the act 
its great effectiveness. 

Of the two later "She-tragedies," "Lady Jane Grey" 
presents the usual love intrigue (fomented here by the dis- 
carded rival), the female protagonist, and much Pro- 
testant and Whig patriotism, but nothing not paralleled 
in Rowe's other plays. " Jane Shore" (1714), one of the 



\ 



288 TRAGEDY 

most popular plays of the century, represents another 
treatment of '' the fair penitent," this time not only in 
a story used in the Elizabethan drama, but in a style 
avowedly in imitation of Shakespeare's. 

Gloster, who is closely modeled on Shakespeare's Richard III, 
plays an important part, usually in consultation with his two 
confidants, Catesby and Radcliffe. Hastings, suspected by 
Gloster of loyalty to the child prince, becomes enamored of 
Jane Shore, the former mistress of Edward IV. She, now 
dedicated to penitence, resists his persuasions, in which she 
is encouraged by Dumont (her husband in disguise) and his 
confidant Bellmour. When Hastings resorts to force, Dumont 
comes to the rescue and disarms him. Alicia, deserted by Has- 
tings, is the jealous and vengeful woman, well known in tra- 
gedy; and she denounces Hastings and Jane Shore in a letter 
which she substitutes for the petition for the release of Dumont, 
imprisoned through Hastings, that Jane Shore presents to 
Gloster. Gloster, upon testing Hastings and Jane Shore, is met 
by frank protestations from both of their loyalty to the prince. 
Hastings is condemned to death, but has time for a final inter- 
view with Alicia, and the exchange of mutual upbraidings, con- 
fessions, and forgiveness. Jane Shore is condemned to public 
penance. She has a parting interview with Alicia, who has gone 
mad, and then encounters Dumont, who, after a long discussion 
with his confidant, has decided to reveal himself and forgive 
his wife. She dies and he is led away to prison. 

"Let those who view this sad Example, know 
What Fate attends the broken Marriage Vow; 
And teach their Children in succeedino; Times, 
No common Vengeance waits upon their Crimes, 
When such severe Repentance could not save 
From Want, from Shame, and an untimely Grave." 

The play is undoubtedly Rowe's masterpiece, the 
closing scenes having a natural pathos that he rarely 



NICHOLAS ROWE 289 

attains elsewhere. The only Shakespearean imitation 
now discernible is in the character of Gloster, though 
Rowe may have endeavored in his female characters to 
supply the naturalness and greatness of emotions Tvhich 
he recognized as characteristic of Shakespeare's men, 
but curiously thought lacking in his women. Here and 
elsewhere in language and metaphors Rowe reverts at 
times to the Elizabethans, as also in the admission of 
much action and spectacle, in pale horrors, and in the 
plots of his two best known plays. In the general con- 
ception and structure of his plays he follows Otway. 
Taken as a whole, however, his plays, without comedy, 
with much heroic love, w^ith few persons, and a restricted 
action, come nearer to French models than those of any 
preceding writer of large reputation. Sentimentalized, 
moralized, conventionalized as the plays are, Rowe may 
be said to have made a novel departure in tragedy, though 
one accomplished a century before by Heywood's "A 
Woman Killed with Kindness." Penitence is the sole 
theme of his two famous plays, and the moral lesson is 
constantly enforced. The protagonist is a repentant 
sinner for whom we feel pity because of her punishment, 
which we nevertheless regard as just. 

Rowe's plays, tame as they are, seem to have been 
too exciting and too rude for the coterie of wits who set 
the standards of criticism; and before the appearance 
of " Jane Shore " an effort was made under the direction 
of Addison toward still greater refinement and closer 
accord with French rules. Smith's "Phsedra and Hip- 



290 TRAGEDY 

politus" (1706), an adaptation of Racine, failed on the 
stage in spite of Addison's approval, but it was later 
often revived, and it prepared the way for the great 
success of Ambrose Philips's "Distrest Mother" (1712), 
a translation of the " Andromaque." This success, 
promoted by the zealous support of Mr. Spectator and 
Sir Roger de Coverley, was due in large measure to the 
story, sentimental and moral in accord with the taste 
of the day.^ In these respects "The Distrest Mother" 
had the advantage of "Phaedra," though both illustrate 
the tendency, growing since Lee and Otway, of making 
the heroine the protagonist. At all events, the success 
of Philips's translation was not only great for the mo- 
ment, but long continued. It remained a popular stock 
play through the century, gave a favorite part to Mrs. 
Siddons, and introduced Macready to a London audi- 
ence. 

In the flush of Philips's first success, Addison was em- 
boldened to present his long withheld " Cato " upon the 
stage. The political circumstances made the first night 
one of the most memorable in the history of the theatre, 
and gave the play what was then the enormous initial 
run of a month. Voltaire praised; and, with the excep- 
tion of the doughty Dennis, English critics seemed agreed 
that here at last was an English tragedy in full accord 
wit^ classical precedents and the rules of reason. The 
play continued a favorite on the stage into the nine- 

^ See Comeille and Racine in England. Dorothea Canfield. New 
York, 1904. 



FRENCH INFLUENCE ' 291 

teenth century, and even after the retirement of Kemble, 
who found in Cato one of his great parts. It would be 
vain to search for dramatic merits to account for this 
great success. The play combines love intrigues, as 
absurd as those usual in contemporary plays, with lucid 
declamation and aphoristic moralizing. Aphorism and 
declamation have, indeed, rarely been absent from the 
tragedy of any period or nation, but they were especially 
delightful to the taste of the Augustan era. Addison 
was only continuing the success of Rowe's " Tamerlane,'* 
reducing its rant to a more reasonable pattern. The 
reforming classicists, like the theatre-pleasing Rowe, 
hit on the two themes which pleased the public, the 
distressed female and the patriotic moralizer. 

The success of "The Distrest Mother" and "Cato" 
was the beginning of the long triumph of French in- 
fluence over English tragedy, yet the victory was never 
more than half won. There was no capitulation, and 
the battle continued through the century both among 
the critics and on the stage. Rowe's plays maintained 
at least a feeble English tradition, and Shakespeare's 
won increasing admiration. If critical opinion was for 
a time warm in support of French classicism, the theatre 
still clung to Elizabethan practices. Later, when imi- 
tations of the French models had established themselves 
in some degree upon the stage, criticism turned to con- 
demnation of the unities and renewed its laudations of 
Shakespeare. The lines of battle were often obscured. 
Between Rowe's refinements of Elizabethan plays and 



292 ^ TRAGEDY 

Addison's imitation of the French there is Httle diflFer- 
enee; and later, in spite of the din of critical essays and 
prefaces, the representatives of " Shakespeare's school" 
and of '* correct taste " have a great similarity. 

The Elizabethan tradition was directly represented 
by Elizabethan imitations and revivals, by many new 
plays that reverted in one way or another to the early 
methods, by the conservatism of actors and playgoers, 
and by the tragedies of Shakespeare. As Shakespeare 
grew in the appreciation of readers and critics, there 
was a tendency toward the restoration of a real Shake- 
spearean text to the stage. There were, to be sure, in- 
numerable new alterations and adaptations, but these 
were mostly of little importance on the stage. They 
dealt with the minor plays, as "Cymbeline," "Corio- 
lanus," or "Timon;" or they were the essays of ad- 
miring amateurs with a bent for restringing the rough 
diamonds of the original, or of playwrights trying to 
meet the theatrical demands of the moment. Gibber's 
"Richard III" and Tate's "Lear" held the stage well 
into the next century, but " Julius Caesar," " Hamlet " 
(except for Garrick's alteration, 1772-80), and "Othel- 
lo" admitted no alterations. After 1744 Shakespeare's 
" Macbeth " took the place of Davenant's, and " Romeo 
and Juhet" of Otway's " Gains Marius." " Goriolanus," 
variously revised, altered, and finally combined with 
Thomson's play of the same name, was toward the end 
of the century given a great vogue by Kemble; and, 
indeed, the only one of the tragedies neglected during 



THE ELIZABETHAN INFLUENCE 293 

the century was "Antony and Cleopatra." * Dryden's 
"All for Love" had usurped its place. As the critical 
tone toward Shakespeare grew more admiring and less 
tainted by condescension, so the attitude of actors and 
audiences grew in heartiness of appreciation. The re- 
vival of the romantic comedies marked an important 
change of taste, though not calling for more than men- 
tion here. Year after year his comedies, histories, and 
tragedies were acted oftener and to larger audiences, 
and gave opportunity for the best efforts of a long series 
of great actors and actresses. Garrick's revivals and tri- 
umphs were followed by those of Mrs. Siddons and 
Kemble. Now one play became a favorite, now another, 
under the influence of a great impersonation; but few 
were neglected, and over the theatre Shakespeare*s 
domination was unquestioned. 

Except for Shakespeare the direct influence of the 
Elizabethans was small. A few of the tragedies were 
acted intermittently in the first half of the century, and 
a few comedies kept their places in the stock list much 
longer. Revivals, though not infrequent, were rarely 
permanent. Revampings sometimes resulted in an 
almost unconditional surrender to the French. Theo- 
bald in the first half of the century attempted a reversion 
to the Elizabethans without much success, and later a 
revival of interest in Massinger succeeded in restoring 
only his two comedies to the theatre. As sources of 

* Its only appearance on the stage recorded by Genest was in Capell's 
adaptation, acted six times by Garrick in 1759. 



294 TRAGEDY 

incentive for those writers who shunned French modes, 
Otway, Southerne, and Rowe took the places of the 
EHzabethans other than Shakespeare. The Enghsh 
tradition which these names represent had, as we have 
seen, already been much subject to French influence, 
though protected by the adherence of the theatre to old 
custom. Consequently, while the majority of eighteenth 
century tragedies retain some Elizabethan practices, 
there is not one of importance that is a thoroughgoing 
representative of the old methods and technic. 

French influence, on the contrary, had many repre- 
sentatives among the new plays. The success of "The 
Distrest Mother " led to a number of translations. In the 
first quarter of the century there were ten of Racine's 
plays and four of Corneille's; and of these fourteen, 
eight were acted, and several with success. Later on, 
Whitehead's "Roman Father" (1750), an adaptation 
of Corneille's "Horace," won a place in the stock list. 
But the leading factor in the French influence on English 
tragedy during the century was Voltaire. The long 
critical debate which he waged in behalf of the rules 
and against the barbarities of Shakespeare has its impor- 
tance in English as well as French literary history. But 
while the English critics grew more and more eager as the 
century advanced to uphold the glory of Shakespeare and 
to denounce an atheist who denied this, or to proclaim 
their freedom from the narrowing rules which were 
French, yet the triumphs of Voltaire's plays upon the 
English stage continued unabated. Adaptations of no less 



VOLTAIRE 295 

than nine of his tragedies had appeared on the London 
stage before the Enghsh translation of his full works 
in 1779-80, and there were manifold borrowings from 
him in many other plays. ^ A number of the translations, 
Hill's "Zara" and "Merope," Miller's "Mahomet," 
and Murphy's "Orphan of China," made notable suc- 
cesses. From the production of "Brutus" to that of 
" Semiramis " in 1776 Voltaire may be said to have been 
the most popular and influential of the writers of tragedy 
for the English theatre.^ 

The translations of these tragedies, however, indicate 
the influence of English traditions. The long speeches 
are shortened, the dialogue is broken and enlivened, 
the minor proprieties disregarded, the sentiments and 
morals Anglicized, and some business and bloodshed in- 
troduced on the stage. In Hill's " Merope," for example, 
the great scene where Merope strives to kill the murderer 
of her long-lost son and discovers the supposed mur- 
derer to be her son himself, loses all its simplicity as well 
as its poetry. It is ornamented by Hill with processions, 
virgins in white, music, a sacrificial song, and many 
starts and strains. Where on the French stage Egisthe 

1 Brutus (1734). Zara (1736), Alzira (1736), Mahomet (1744), Merope 
(1749), Orphan of China (1759), Orestes (1769), Almida (1771) (from 
Tancrede), Semiramis (1776). See, also, Hoole's Cyrus (1768), Crad- 
ock's Zobeide (1771), Murphy's Alzuma (1773), and Brooke's Imposter 
(1778), not acted. 

^ Professor Lounsbury seems mistaken in finding a "sudden cessa- 
tion of interest in Voltaire" after 1750. Shakespere and Voltaire, pp. 
304, 305. He neglects the later popularity of The Orphan of China and 
the continued popularity of plays earlier translated. 



296 TRAGEDY 

decorously withdraws behind the scenes as his mother 
approaches with the dagger, on the English stage every- 
thing was in full sight. If some of the other translations 
are less altered, the imitations and unavowed adapta- 
tions are much more so. Hoole's "Cyrus" (1768), a 
popular play, is obviously based on " Merope," but adds 
a much complicated plot, a mad woman, a love intrigue 
between the long-lost son and the daughter of the old 
tutor, and a returning husband for Mandane (Merope). 
The great success of Voltaire in England did not, in fact, 
produce any very marked change in the course of tragedy. 
He represents the continuance of French influence but 
established no departures of note from the general type 
established in the English theatres by 1725. Virtually 
no English tragedies in the eighteenth century intro- 
duced comedy; few reveled in horrors and bloodshed, 
the majority observed the unities, nearly all had few 
persons, a restricted action, and themes and situations 
confined to slight variations of a stereotyped love 
story ; and nearly all had regard for poetic justice. The 
differences between French and English tragedy were 
largely those which adapters of Voltaire eliminated 
when they made over his plays for the London theatres 
and gave them a more broken dialogue and more stage 
action, and perhaps a mad woman or a villain. More- 
over, the amelioration of the differences between the 
two theatres was not all on one side, as is shown by Vol- 
taire's own imitations of Shakespeare and his introduc- 
tion of ghosts and horrors, and by the growing interest 



VOLTAIRE 297 

in France in Shakespeare and other English dramatists.^ 
Voltaire, with his ingenious plots and telling crises, was 
nearer than Racine to the English tradition, and he 
wrote at a time when the differences between the two 
national theatres were minimized to a degree that made 
intercommunication easy. His talents gave him an easy 
superiority over any English writer of tragedies after 
the classical formulas. 

In the course of the century there were also, a con- 
siderable number of plays that turned from French to 
Greek models. While these cannot be regarded as wholly 
representative of a reaction from a pseudo to a truer 
classicism, they certainly offered hardly more resem- 
blance to Voltaire than to Shakespeare. The Greek 
influence was, however, variously manifested. Adapta- 
tions of Euripides were numerous, half a dozen of which 
were presented at the theatres. In addition, a number 
of original plays were written, following the Greek form. 
Most famous of these were two by Gray's friend Mason, 
"Elfrida" and " Caractacus." The latter, while stilted 
and academic, compares favorably in point of literary 

^ Le theatre anglais (1746-49) of Pierre de La Place contained in 
its 8 vols, synopses and partial translations of the following plays: 
Othello, 3 Henry VI, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Cymheline, Julius 
Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor, The Maid's Tragedy, Catiline, The Fair Penitent, Venice Pre- 
served, Aureng Zebe, The Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Siege of Da- 
mascus (by Hughes, 1720), Busiris, Love for Love, The Innocent 
Adultery, Cato, The Funeral (Steele, 1702). This list, in which it will 
be noticed tragedy greatly predominates, represents fairly the English 
taste of the time. 



298 TRAGEDY 

excellence with most tragedies of the century, and not 
altogether unworthily takes its place in a series that in- 
cludes " Samson Agonistes " and " Prometheus Unbound." 
"Read Shakespeare," wrote Lyttleton to Aaron Hill, 
" but study Racine and Sophocles." But the classicists 
were occupied in the main with neither poet, but in dis- 
cussing various minor questions of dramatic propriety: 
Should any violence or bloodshed be permitted ? Should 
rhyme tags end the scenes ? Should the epilogue be comic 
or serious ? Should figures of speech be allowed ^ Should 
long speeches be shortened for presentation ? Classicism 
in both England and France was not greatly imitative 
of either Sophocles or Racine, but mainly insistent on 
immaterialities. 

If we attempt to follow the diminishing differences 
between English and French standards in the work of 
individual authors, Young's " Busiris " (1719) and " Re- 
venge" (1721) are the most important of those trage- 
dies in the first quarter of the century which cling to some 
of the characteristics of the early English drama, while 
his "Brothers," written at about the same time but not 
acted until 1753, is based upon Thomas Corneille's 
"Persee et Demetrius." In "Busiris" there is no villain, 
but tyranny, conspiracy, and a passionate revenging 
queen play their usual parts. There is an attempt, both 
in incidents and expression, at Elizabethan force and 
horror; the main action deals with a rape, and five of 
the principal persons are killed upon the stage. "The 
Revenge" is still more Elizabethan, being a palpable 



JAMES THOMSON 299 

imitation of "Othello." The prologue declares that the 
proper field for tragedy is not villany but " the tumults 
of a Godlike mind," yet the villain, the Moor Zanga, 
is the chief character and was acted by Garrick, Kemble, 
and Kean. The villain's part, it is interesting to note, 
affords the most striking difference between this popular 
play and the even more popular " Zara." In both, the 
heroine, pure and innocent, is killed by the husband, 
Othello-like in both magnanimity and jealousy; but in 
Voltaire the jealousy is occasioned by the heroine's 
meetings with her brother, a captive Christian, in Young 
by the busy and ponderous intrigues of a Moorish lago. 
In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue 
of classicism both in literary circles and in the theatres. 
His early tragedies, "Sophonisba" (1730), "Agammem- 
non" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited 
by the censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won 
little favor except in the circle of wits who attempted 
to dictate the national taste in letters and among the 
opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the 
Queen and the two later to the Princess of Wales, and 
"Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743) to Frederick, Prince 
of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the 
Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered 
and superintended by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a 
large popular success; and portions of " Coriolanus," 
acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined 
with Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas 
Sheridan and Kemble, and supplied the latter with his 



300 TRAGEDY 

greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor to retell 
stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the 
rules, with absolute propriety of diction, some reference 
to political events, and a due inculcation of moral senti- 
ments. In the language of one of their admirers, they 
were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becom- 
ing virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."^ 
"Sophonisba" is sternly heroic in its subordination of 
love to patriotic hate of Rome in the character of its 
heroine, and sternly classic in the simplicity of its plot 
and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammem- 
non," also a *' She-tragedy," is designed after the school 
of Racine rather than of Corneille ; and its wavering, in- 
consistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play with a tor- 
rent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from 
a desert island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are 
queer denizens of the house of Atreus. "Edward and 
Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison from 
her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected 
of the attempted murder, bore a truly miraculous anti- 
dote to the Christian camp, owes allegiance to Voltaire. 
Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring it 
also more closely in accord with the prevailing English 
type. "Tancred and Sigismunda," based on the story 
as told in " Gil Bias," ^ makes the lover a claimant to 
the throne and the intervention of the father due to rea- 
sons of state. The plot is developed with more skill 

^ Dr. Rundle, Letters, quoted by Morel, James Thomson, p. 82. 
^ Gil Bias, Book 4, " Le Mariage de vengeance." 



JAMES THOMSON 301 

than is usual in Thomson, and the rival lovers, the 
marriage in revenge, the midnight interview, the duel, 
and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity 
to the prevailing model. " Coriolanus," the subject of 
many French tragedies and of Shakespearean altera- 
tions by Tate and Dennis, illustrates the inferiority of 
the classic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation 
of history. The action, beginning with the arrival of 
Coriolanus as a suppliant for TuUus's hospitality, 
crowds the remaining events and the changes in the two 
rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of 
time and place. Coriolanus himself exemplifies the effort 
toward " Nature," that is, typicality and reasonableness, 
in pseudo-classical characterization. He expresses the 
sentiments and manners approved by the eighteenth 
century, and, even when pride and revenge most fire his 
passion, is a very tame lion. The moral lessons, some- 
what clouded in Shakespeare, are distinctly enunciated 
and finally summed up by Galesus: — 

" This man was once the glory of his age, 
Disinterested, just, with every virtue 
Of civil life adorn'd, in arms unequall'd. 
His only blot was this ; that, much provok'd, 
He rais'd his vengeful arm against his country," etc. (v. 4). 

In Thomson's other plays the inflated declamation oc- 
casionally gives way to a bit of description that recalls 
"The Seasons," but in "Coriolanus" he follows the 
promise of the Prologue to "Tancred" with unerring 
fidelity : — 



302 TRAGEDY 

" Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime, 
To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme. 
High rant is tumbled from his gallery throne; 
Description, dreams, — nay, similes are gone." 

He was obviously seeking what he called Shakespeare's 
"simple, plain sublime," and his declamations occa- 
sionally reach a sententious lucidity worthy of Addison, 
but the pseudo-classic diction freezes every emotion 
with its "transports," "charms," and "nuptial loves." 
This is Volumnia's appeal to Coriolanus, her husband 
in Thomson's play: — 

"Ah Coriolanus! 
Is then this hand, this hand to be devoted. 
The pledge of nuptial love, that has so long 
Protected, bless'd, and shelter'd us with kindness, 
Now lifted up against us ? Yet 1 love it, 
And, with submissive veneration, bow 
Beneath th' affliction which it heaps upon us. 
But O! what nobler transports would it give thee! 
What joy beyond expression ! couldst thou once 
Surmount the furious storm of fierce revenge. 
And yield ye to the charms of love and mercy. 
Oh make the glorious trial!" (v. 1). 

Thomson's plays were not esteemed even by his master 
Voltaire as contributing greatly to that perfection of 
art possibly attainable by a " due mixture of the French 
taste and English energy." For, though "wisely intri- 
cated and elegantly writ," Voltaire found him, like 
Addison, lacking in warmth, an "iced genius." ^ Frigid 
to his contemporaries, the tragedies were long since 

^ For various references to Thomson in Voltaire's Letters, see Morel, 
op. cit. pp. 192-194 ; and a letter on the French translation of Tancred 
and Sigismunda, p. 153. 



AARON HILL 303 

decently interred. They constitute, nevertheless, the 
most considerable attempt made by any author of the 
eighteenth century to conserve the classic theory of 
tragedy, and they recall nearly every variety of pseudo- 
classic endeavor. Of classicism it might be said, as of 
Thomson, that it attempted classic and early English 
history, that it found in partisan patriotism its favorite 
theme for rhetoric, that its French rules and taste usually 
pleased readers better than spectators, but that when it 
took one of Shakespeare's tragedies as the basis for an 
infusion of classical theory, or when it was tempered with 
a love story and a lively action, it triumphed in the theatre. 
Thomson's friends. Mallet and the versatile and 
indefatigable Aaron Hill, joined him in his efforts to 
redeem the tragic muse. Hill's efforts, if no more suc- 
cessful than Thomson's and much less consistent, are at 
least more amusing. His general theory seems to have 
been not unlike that which actually controlled theatri- 
cal practice; he purposed a combination of French rules 
with romantic incident, theatrical bustle, and his own 
inimitable style. His " Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam " 
(1716), he boasted, had "a deeper and more surprising 
plot than any play which has been published, that I 
know of, in the English tongue; and yet is written in 
strict observance of the dramatic rules" and affords 
"room for topical reflections, large description, love, 
war, show, and passion," and also "a very high regard 
to decoration." The play is noticeable for its tangle of 
trite dramatic motives. 



304 TRAGEDY 

The emperor's vision is of a son who shall kill him and usurp 
the throne. The two elder sons are in love with the Princess of 
Siam. Sworn by her to kill their father, and condemned by 
him for a murder they did not commit, they die fighting in his 
behalf. The third son kills the emperor, marries the princess, 
and ascends the throne. In his rapid advance he is aided by 
the banished empress, who has returned to court and attained 
high power, disguised as the favorite eunuch. 

Hill adapted three of Voltaire's plays, "Zara/* "Al- 
zira/' and " Merope.'* To the first he wrote some comic 
choruses intended to be sung between the acts, and 
to the third he prefixed his revised and final opinion of 
Voltaire and French tragedy: — 

" Our unpolished English stage (as he assumes the liberty of 
calling it) has entertained a nobler taste of dignify'd simplicity, 
than to deprive dramatic poetry of all that animates its passions ; 
in pursuit of a cold, starved, tame abstinence, which, from an 
affectation to shun figure, sinks to flatness : an elaborate escape 
from energy into a groveling, wearisome, bald, barren, unalarm- 
ing chilness of expression, that emasculates the mind, instead of 
moving it.'' 

"Athelwold" (1731), a revision of his early "Elfrid," 
is colorlessly conventional; "The Roman Revenge" 
(1753) is an alteration of "Julius Caesar"; "The In- 
solvent" (1758) is a rewriting of "The Fatal Dowry," 
making the heroine an innocent object of jealousy. 
Most Aaronic of all is "Henry V" (1723). Here he gives 
up French unities and technic, and introduces many 
characters, shifting scenes, a bit of comedy, and the 
" genius of England," who sings a song. His greatest 
addition to Shakespeare is his Harriet, who starts out 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TYPE 305 

like one of the evil queens in the heroic tragedies. When 
abandoned by Henry, she is still jealous and revengeful ; 
next she appears disguised as a page in the French camp, 
and, Viola-like, relates a story of a love-lorn sister; 
then recaptured by Henry, she storms and melts; but 
the Jane Shore mood is transient, and, like a tragedy 
queen again, she stabs herself. A man who could write 
a comic duet for Voltaire's "Zaire" and could supply 
Prince Hal with a paramour whose grandmothers were 
Viola and the Indian Queen, ought not to be wholly 
forgotten. 

Hill's career may remind us both of the din of the 
critics over Voltaire and Shakespeare, and also of the 
virtual compromise and amalgamation that had taken 
place on the stage between French and English tradi- 
tions. English tragedy, after a long national development, 
had become materially modified by French influence 
and had assumed a fixed and restricted form. This 
type, recognizable early in the century, continues to 
prevail nearly to the end. The century had little power 
of innovation, little that can be called a development 
in the history of tragedy. The pendulum swings now 
toward French, now toward Elizabethan models, but 
its oscillations are slight and regulated. The plays thus 
far considered offer unimportant variations from the 
type, and plays after the middle of the century vary still 
less. Home's famous "Douglas" (1757), that thrilled 
every heart and in the opinion of the judicious redeemed 
the stage anew from barbarism, fails now to distinguish 



306 TRAGEDY 

itself from its fellows, unless by its touches of melan- 
choly, medievalism, and nature, that hint of romanticism. 
Here, as so often, a much suffering woman is beset by 
villany and jealousy. Home's other tragedies and those 
of Glover, Hoole, Brown, Murphy, and Cumberland 
offer even less of novelty, except that toward the end 
of the century refinement in sentiments and morals 
becomes increasingly attenuated. Miss Hannah More 
best represents this feminization of the type. Her 
"Percy" (1777), a very successful play, is devoted to the 
sentiment : — 

" Will it content me that her person 's pure ? 
No, if her alien heart doats on another. 
She is unchaste." 

"The Fatal Falsehood" (1779) presents in a domestic 
guise the usual plot of rivals in love and an intriguing vil- 
lain, with the addition of a love-sick lady who runs mad. 
" The curtain falls to soft music." The century has one 
marked innovation in the realistic plays of Lillo and 
Moore, and after 1780 there are signs of the romanticism 
stirring elsewhere in literature ; but in the main the new 
tragedies are hopelessly commonplace representatives of 
an extremely conventionalized form. 

Yet tragedy was by no means neglected in literature 
or on the stage. Several hundred tragedies were pub- 
lished during the century and many of them went through 
several editions. Three or four were brought out every 
year in the theatres, and many of these maintained 
themselves for a time as stock plays. Most men of letters 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TYPE 307 

essayed tragedy, — Addison, Johnson, Young, Thomson, 
Gay, the laureates Gibber, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, and 
a host of minor celebrities. Besides the tragedies acted, 
there were almost as many not acted but printed. Closet 
dramas, common in the Elizabethan period, grew more 
numerous after the Restoration. Whether the writer 
scorned or was scorned by the manager, an appeal to 
the reading public was always easy and apparently some- 
times profitable. Tragedies were bought and read; a 
popular play might start with an edition of five thousand 
and run through a number of editions. Even after the 
novel had supplanted the drama among readers, there 
was no diminution of printed plays. The non-acted 
plays, however, offer nothing of importance for the his- 
tory of the drama. The majority are unactable; others 
follow the usual formulas ; a few Greek plays, alterations 
of Shakespeare, and sacred dramas have some interest 
as curiosities. The increase in the number of these plays 
does indicate a growing separation between the drama 
and the theatre. Plays were no longer written by a set of 
dramatists who made a profession ; they were written by 
any one who had literary pretensions. Only a few new 
plays were required; the supply greatly exceeded the 
demand. The theatrical monopoly maintained by the 
two patented theatres offered no great encouragement to 
dramatists, and the number who wrote without any ac- 
quaintance or knowledge of the stage increased. Liter-' 
ary fame rather than success in the theatre was perhaps 
the greater incentive in the case of tragedy. Whatever 



308 TRAGEDY 

the incentive, individual ambition resulted in no individ- 
uality of expression. The popular ballad of tradition is 
scarcely less expressive of personality than the average 
eighteenth century tragedy. Even the plays of temporary 
importance have no flavor of their own.* 

The features of this type have often been mentioned 
in connection with particular plays, but it may be con- 
venient to collect them in a composite picture. In struc- 
ture and technic French models are mainly followed. 
Very long speeches, indeed, are rare, bloodshed and 
violence are permitted on the stage, and there is a good 
deal of incident; but bloodshed and horrors after the 
Elizabethan style no longer appear. Comedy also has 
disappeared, and is tabooed even in adaptations of 
Shakespeare or of Restoration plays. Comedy is re- 
served for the farce which is always performed after a 
tragedy. Each tragedy concerns itself with a single plot, 
involving only from six to ten persons, and observing 
the unities, even after Johnson's salutary condemnation 
of them. There are few changes of scene, ordinarily 
none within an act. With the disappearance of other 
medieval characteristics there has also departed the 

^ The following list includes all eighteenth century tragedies, not 
mentioned in the text, that achieved any considerable popularity. These 
all became stock plays, and most were acted in the nineteenth century. 
Hughes, Siege of Damascus (1720) ; Fenton, Mariamne (1723) ; Jones, 
Earl of Essex (1753), which superseded Banks's play as a stage favorite; 
Brown, Barbarossa (1754) ; Francklin, Earl of Warwick (1766) ; Hartson, 
Countess of Salisbury (1767); Murphy, Zenobia (1768), and The Gre- 
cian Daughter (1772), which gave a famous part, Euphrasia, to Mrs. 
Siddons and later to Miss Fannie Kemble. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TYPE 309 

medieval freedom in respect to the suitability of an action 
for the stage. The range of incidents possible for pre- 
sentation is very limited; exposition is largely by nar- 
rative; supernatural elements, common in Lee, are 
unusual; the ghost at last rests in peace. Madness, 
however, is still retained, especially in the case of the 
long-suffering heroine. Battles, armies, stage spectacles 
of all kinds, are restricted, though the scenes may be 
elaborate, and processions, sacrifices, even music and 
songs are permissible. The first essential for the action 
is a love story, the second some kind of historical setting. 
The fatal or hazardous loves of princes and queens are 
the themes; Eastern, classic, or early English courts are 
the scenes. 

The love story itself often keeps to the form customary 
in the heroic plays. Two rivals in love, two heroines, 
major and minor, a tyrant, an intriguing minister, and 
the accompanying confidants appear again and again to 
assist in similar stories of jealousy, ambition, and villany. 
The old Elizabethan motives continue, as "Rape" and 
" The Fate of Villany," the titles of two plays acted in 
1729-30, may witness, but usually they are refined and 
tamed. Incest and rape are averted; the tyrant in love 
with the heroine only threatens; the villain who pursues 
casts suspicion on her virtue but abstains from violence ; 
the two brothers, or the son and the father, in love with 
the same lady sometimes find renunciation possible. 
Unjustified jealousy is perhaps the leading motive, and 
there are many feeble imitations of " Othello.'* A secret 



310 TRAGEDY 

marriage, a long-lost son, and marriages, either for re- 
venge or in order to save a lover, are common elements 
in the plot. Hero and heroine are examples of virtue. 
Their difficulties or ruin are sometimes due to one fatal 
error duly emphasized, or -they may be due wholly to 
the machinations of the villain. In the latter case, poetic 
justice is usually regarded and the good are saved. 

The villain is the most constant reminder of Eliza- 
bethan tragedy. He has all the traits of the stage Machia- 
vellis of Marlowe and Kyd, and sometimes imitates lago. 
He is wholly black at heart, but he is apparently frank 
and honest; his revenge or ambition works by most 
devious intrigue; he confides his schemes to the audi- 
ence in long soliloquies, yet his accomplished hypocrisy 
long baffles the rest of the dramatis personae. As in late 
Elizabethan and Restoration plays, he is often a prime 
minister. A collection of these villains' speeches would 
illustrate the conventionalized character of eighteenth 
century tragedy and the tendency of stage types to per- 
petuate themselves in theatrical tradition. A few lines 
from two may be sufficient. The first is the opening solil- 
oquy of Se}^ert in " The Heroine of the Cave," a play of 
some popularity acted in 1774. 

" Revenge, thou art the deity I adore ! — 
From thy auspicious shrine I hope a cure 
For the corroding pain that rends my heart. 
The vain Alberti being thus preferr'd 
By fair Constantia, passeth all enduring! 
Colredo I have rouz'd — another wooer — 
And in his name are such reflections dropp'd, 
As 'twixt the two a duel must provoke — 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TYPE 311 

My purpose is, whoe'er the conqu'ror be, 

To reap advantage for my private views," etc. 

The second is the opening soHloquy of Bertrand in 
Miss Hannah More's "Fatal Falsehood " (1779). 

" What fools are serious melancholy villains ! 
I play a surer game, and screen my heart 
With easy looks and undesigning smiles; 
And while my actions spring from sober thought. 
They still appear th' effect of wild caprice. 
And I, the thoughtless slave of giddy chance. 
What but this frankness has engag'd the promise 
Of young Orlando, to confide in me 
That secret grief which preys upon his heart ? 
'T is dangerous, indiscreet hypocrisy 
To seem too good: I am the careless Bertrand, 
The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man:" etc. 

The continuance of the stage villain is worthy of some 
note beyond its evidence of conventionalization. It calls 
attention to the fact that English tragedy has always 
been largely concerned with evil persons. Though the 
utterly bad were condemned as tragic figures by Aristotle, 
and the overthrow of the wicked as a tragic theme has 
ever since been held in some contempt by theorizers; 
yet from the time of Marlowe, or even earlier, English 
tragedy has told the stories of evil-doers with careers of 
cruelty or lust, or of machinators who have turned to 
bitterness and disaster the lives of the pure and the good. 
Of the first class are the tyrants, usurpers, lustful mon- 
archs, and bloody avengers ; of the second, the Machia- 
vellian prime ministers, the hypocritical counselors, and 
the traitorous friends; and the two are often united 
as in Barabas or Richard III. English authors, actors. 



312 TRAGEDY 

and audiences have delighted in a visible representative 
of the devil upon the stage, in an impersonation of the 
source of evil. Given grandeur of ambition, the evil one 
becomes the protagonist ; given mere revenge and hatred 
as motives, he is still the main opponent of the hero. 
Perhaps the highest kind of tragic feeling is not aroused 
either by the fall of the depraved or by the ruin of the 
noble through trickery and cunning, yet "Richard III" 
and " Macbeth " deal with the one theme, and " Othello " 
and "Lear" with the other. Shakespeare's tragedies, 
indeed, represent other conflicts than this between good 
and evil, and in the representation of that conflict they 
are not confined by theological or dramatic formulas. 
Such formulas were just what eighteenth century writers 
enjoyed, and in attacking the problem of evil they clung 
to one of the most artificial if also one of the most typical 
persons in literature, the Elizabethan stage machinator. 
The conflict of bad and good, a natural if not inevitable 
motive of a drama descending from medieval times, 
found its expression in the excessively amiable hero and 
heroine and the utterly black villain, stage types that 
have maintained themselves in fiction as well as the 
drama through Scott and Dickens down to the present 
day. The stage villain, a theory of poetic justice that 
refused to punish the good except for some distinctly 
emphasized fault, and a faith in the potency of moral 
precepts, these are the devil, providence, and salvation of 
a theatrical theology, which, along with conventional 
technic, narrowed plots, and some refinement in moral 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TYPE 313 

taste, distinguish the eighteenth century type of tra- 
gedy. 

The bird, caged and cHpped, no longer sang. There 
was no poetry left in tragedy, and no human nature. 
Was there anything, then, in this type that showed 
advance over the preceding centuries, or anything that 
offered promise for future development ? Not one of the 
literary forms in which the eighteenth century excelled, 
and not one fully representing the pseudo-classical theo- 
ries, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing 
classicism versus romanticism. It merely presents a 
deteriorated English tradition modified and narrowed 
by pseudo-classical rules and theory. Yet it corrected 
and modified English tradition where it needed correc- 
tions and modifications, without quite denationalizing it. 
The admixture of comedy, prone to become gross farce, 
the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and revolting 
themes were rightly abandoned. In structure there was 
a more positive reformation. Stage illusion and precision 
of effect may be aided by an observance of the unities, and 
the limitation of the action to a single plot, a few persons, 
and a few scenes, — Shakespeare and encomiasts of his 
art to the contrary notwithstanding. It must be added 
that in practice the unities are likely to result in a counter- 
balancing defect, in a concentration of incident improb- 
able and artificial, as often in eighteenth centurj^ tragedies, 
and even in Ibsen. The pseudo-classicists erred mainly 
in taking their rules as masters instead of as guides. 
Yet eighteenth century tragedy deserves this meed of 



314 TRAGEDY 

praise that it sought for literary form, which preceding 
tragedy had largely lacked; and its attempts to secure 
this offered useful lessons for the future. But here the 
usefulness of its dramatic art ends. In the limitation of 
what could be acted and of what belonged to the species, 
it was suicidal. French tragedy in its effort to imitate 
Greek failed to take advantage of the resources of modern 
theatres; and English tragedy, halting between English 
and French precedents, simply confined itself to well- 
worn theatrical customs. There are not only no new sub- 
jects or characters, there are no new situations, surprises, 
or catastrophes, no new methods of exposition or dialogue. 
Some of the worst of the old conventions survived, as the 
soliloquies, which continue long, frequent, and undis- 
guised, but it would be hard to find even a bit of stage 
business that was new. Eighteenth century tragedy made 
no adequate demands of its splendid theatres and great 
actors.^ 
/ The only daring departure from the prevailing type, 
/ and the most important contribution to the general de- 
velopment of European tragedy in the eighteenth century, 
came in the success of " George Barnwell, or the London 
Merchant" (1731). This was the first tragedy of George 
Lillo, a London jeweler, who had hitherto had no known 
theatrical or literary connections, save for one unsuccess- 

^ The eighteenth century was not blind to the absurdities of its 
tragedies, but made fun of them without stint. The number of bur- 
lesque tragedies is large and includes: Gay's What d'ye Call It (1715) ; 
Carey's Chrononhotonthologos (1734); Fielding's Tom Thumb (1730); 
Foote's Tragedy a la Mode (1764); and Sheridan's Critic (1779). 



DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 315 

ful play. It was followed within a few years by another 
domestic tragedy, "Fatal Curiosity," two tragedies of 
the regular type, "The Christian Hero" and the post- 
humous "Elmerick," and by adaptations of "Pericles" 
and " Arden of Feversham." The two domestic tragedies 
differ somewhat in both form and purpose. "The Lon- 
don Merchant," in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's 
downfall through the courtesan Millwood, his murder 
of his uncle at her instigation, and the final execution 
of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt 
upon, and the moral lesson is enforced in every line. 
"The Fatal Curiosity," in blank verse, tells of a fright- 
ful murder of a son by a father at the instigation of the 
mother. From the innocent "curiosity" of the long- 
lost son in concealing his identity from his parents, there 
is traced the chain of circumstances which finally drive 
the poverty-stricken and wretched couple to the murder 
of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than 
modern ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny 
as something separate from character, and it links itself 
with the German species of Schichsalstragbdie, which 
indeed it directly influenced. "The London Merchant," 
on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in 
a crude and popular presentation of character that always 
makes the most of human will and sentiment. 

Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it 
was by no means without progenitors and near kins- 
men. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan domestic 
tragedies are evident. Like " Arden pi Feversham," 




316 TRAGEDY 

which Lillo may have been copying, "The London 
Merchant" presents a murder, portrays a monstrous 
woman, and ends with an execution. Like the EHza- 
bethan plays, Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. 
The very pleas that he advances in his dedication for 
realism and liberty had been advanced in "Arden" and 
the " Warning for Fair Women." Moreover, while since 
1660 no tragedies had dealt solely with middle-class 
society, there had been much chafing against the re- 
strictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from 
English writers as well as Corneille had come forecasts 
of the sweeping democracy of Lillo's creed : — 

"What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth; that 
tragedy is so far from losing its dignity, by being accommodated 
to the circumstances of the generality of mankind, that it is 
more truly august in proportion to the extent of its influence, 
and the numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more 
truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who stand 
in need of our assistance, than to a very small part of that 
number." ^ 

Southerne, Otway, and Rowe had won great success 
for domestic themes, and their examples w^ere naturally 
cited in the prologue which introduced " The Merchant.'* 
Comedy might also have been summoned to support. 
After the scourging from Collier it had joined in the 
general movement at the beginning of the century toward 
sentiment and moralizing. Sentimental comedy, seeking 
both pathos and a moral, may be said to begin in Eng- 

^ Dedication to The London Merchant 



DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 317 

land at least as early as CoUey Gibber's " Careless Hus- 
band" (1704) and Steele's "Tender Husband" (1705). 
Steele's "Conscious Lovers" (1722) shows the species 
in full development. More general but not less important 
encouragements for realism in tragedy came from the 
realistic tendencies manifest in the literature of the pre- 
ceding generation, notably in the novels of Defoe, and 
from the moralistic tendencies everywhere manifest in 
both fiction and drama. Lillo was one with his time, 
though out with truth and art, in thinking "the more 
extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more 
excellent that piece must be of its kind."^ The ascend- 
ancy of the middle class in letters, their expanding social 
life, their attachment to a conventional morality and a 
utilitarian art, and their delight in sentimentality, all help 
to explain the appearance of " George Barnwell." Lillo 
was writing for a generation that had " The Fair Penitent " 
and was waiting for " Pamela." 

Lillo's work, however, was none the less that of a 
pioneer. "The Fatal Curiosity" had a special influence, 
beginning forty years after its appearance, in the German 
tragedies of destiny; and "The London Merchant," soon 
after its publication, became of importance in both France 
and Germany. In France its welcome was prepared by the 
growth of a species of sentimental comedy paralleling 
the English, and it was translated in time (1748) to serve 
as an example and stimulant to Diderot's plays and 
theories. Even before the publication of his "Le Fils 
* Dedication to The London Merchant. 



318 TRAGEDY 

Naturel"! (1757), and "Le Pere de Famille"^ (1758), 
Lessing's "Miss Sara Sampson" (1755) had appeared 
directly modeled on " The London Merchant." Through 
Diderot and Lessing and, a little later, through German 
translations of Lillo's plays, domestic tragedy continued 
its leavening work in the German drama. By that time, 
sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy were return- 
ing from France and Germany to influence the English 
drama. 

In England the direct stream of domestic tragedy 
never flowed high. A one-act play, " Fatal Extravagance," 
in prose, had appeared in 1721 under the patronage of 
Aaron Hill, and was revived the year before the success 
of " Barnwell," and later enlarged into five acts. There 
were a few successors — " Caelia, or the Perjured Lover " 
(1732), by Charles Johnson, presenting a Lovelace-like 
protagonist; " Love the Cause and Cure of Grief" (1743), 
a three-act play in prose; and Victor's adaptation of 
"A Woman Killed with Kindness" (1776). Far more 
important than any of these was Moore's "Gamester" 
(1753), long a stock play, and almost as influential on 
the continent as "Barnwell." Like "The Yorkshire 
Tragedy," it pictures the horrors of gaming. The game- 
ster, his long-suffering wife, a faithful servant, a spirited 
girl, her lover, the intriguing villain, and his accomplices 



^ Translated into English as Dorval, or the Test of Virtue (1767). 

2 Translated 1770, and as A Family Picture (1781). Also, of. General 
Burgoyne's Heiress (1786), which borrows from Le Pere de Famille, 
and Holcroft's Love's Frailties (1794), based on a German adaptation. 



SENTIMENTAL COMEDY 319 

play a story of far more insistent dramatic power than 
Lillo's and of no less sentimental and moral conclusive- 
ness. Cumberland's "Mysterious Husband " (1783) is a 
later and less crude representative of the same species.^ 

Lord Davenant has deceived his wife into marrying him by 
slandering her lover Dormer. Later he has entrapped Dormer's 
sister into a pretended marriage and then deserted her. She, 
supposing her husband dead, marries Lord Davenant's son. 
On their marriage day. Dormer returns; Lord Davenant is 
discovered and kills himself. 

Though a man and not a woman is the central figure 
of this social entanglement, we are reminded of the 
Tanquerays and Ebbsmiths of a later day in its powerful 
and not unveracious presentation of domestic ruin. 

One reason for the failure of Lillo's pioneering to arouse 
a larger following in tragedy was the possession which 
comedy had taken of both domestic sentiment and 
morality. The species of sentimental and tearful comedy, 
which had already by 1730 appeared in both England 
and France, soon flourished in both countries. Their 
vogue was diminished by the success of "She Stoops to 
Conquer" and "The Rivals," but there was a further 
development during the last thirty years of the century 
in the plays of Cumberland, Hoi croft, Mrs. Inchbald, 
and others. A certain amount of low comedy was, after 
"The Rivals," admitted to be necessary, as Holcroft 
avows in the preface to " Duplicity," but in such plays as 

^ Criticised in The Critical Review, Iv, 151, because of its introduc- 
tion of a comic character. 



320 TRAGEDY 

his "Duplicity" and "Road to Ruin," or Cumberland's 
"The Jew" and "The Wheel of Fortune," suffering 
abounds, ruin is imminent, there is much weeping, and 
a salient moral lesson. The suffering usually is confined 
to loss of fortune or temptation of virtue, and the moral 
lesson is directed against gaming, or loose living, or 
marital infidelity upon the part of the husband. The in- 
triguing villain in this kind of play sinks to insignificance, 
and the moving force is likely to be a humanitarian bene- 
factor who rescues the lost fortune or saves the heroine 
from the hated marriage. Occasionally this type of serious 
comedy comes close to tragedy. In Holcroft's " Deserted 
Daughter" (1795), a revamping of Cumberland's "Fash- 
ionable Lover," the father has disowned his daughter 
by his first marriage, and, through his wicked agent, 
she has been sent to a house of ill-fame. Not knowing 
his own daughter, the father, ruined in fortune and con- 
science, plans to aid a friend to secure her, and himself 
visits her. The situation is ghastly enough, but all comes 
out happily. The happy ending was in fact the dram of 
eale that corrupted the whole substance of this sentimental 
comedy. The theatrical necessity of a happy ending 
forbade either tragedy or a serious study of life. It com- 
pelled the dramatist to devote a large part of a play to 
preparing for the reconciliation, to spend much time on 
youthful love, to maintain a lightness of tone throughout ; 
and it destroyed the possibility of tracing out character 
and incident to an3i:hing like a logical conclusion. The 
domestic drama, devoted to a serious presentation of 



BEGINNINGS OF ROMANTICISM 321 

social life, had its opportunity in the eighteenth as well 
as in the twentieth centu^}^ It shrank from tragedy; it 
advanced as far as attacking fashionable excesses, or as 
dramatizing moral theses, but it never got beyond the 
lovers who must be united and the everything that must 
come out well. It resigned itself to sentimentality and 
false conclusions, and was naturally overwhelmed by 
the theatrically more captivating sentimentality and fal- 
sity of Kotzebue. When "The London Merchant" and 
"The Gamester" encouraged the vogue of sentimental 
comedy, they nourished an ingrate which destroyed the 
legitimate brood of domestic tragedy. In the theatres 
men took their realism sugared by a sentimentality that 
sent them home contented. But Lillo's work was not un- 
heeded by the genius who in " Tom Jones " and " Amelia " 
gave literary greatness to a realistic study of manners and 
morals. The sentimentalizing and moralizing of the 
middle classes, which from the time of Southerne had 
threatened to have their say on the stage, found their 
spokesman in the author of "Clarissa Harlowe." 

In the last third of the century the various social, 
intellectual, and imaginative changes that make up the 
beginnings of the Romantic movement had their effect 
upon tragedy, but only in a partial and secondary 
fashion. The drama was already losing place to the 
novel in popularity, and showing signs of becoming a 
sort of literary by-product. Successful novels were made 
over into plays, and the various romantic tendencies to 
medievalism, melancholy, supernaturalism, and natu- 



322 TRAGEDY 

ralism found expression in novel or verse rather than in 
play. The reawakening interest in the Elizabethan 
dramatists was represented by a revival of a number of 
the plays of Massinger and of Beaumont and Fletcher, * 
and imitations of Elizabethan diction became frequent. 
A more important departure was furnished by the so- 
called Terrific School of fiction. Medieval stories and 
scenes, and the various accessories of horror, ghosts, 
graveyards, dungeons, vaults, and the midnight bell 
had never been lacking in eighteenth century tragedy, 
but the novels of Walpole and his successors offered some 
novelties. Walpole's own unacted " Mysterious Mother '* 
(1768), perhaps the most powerful of the Gothic trage- 
dies, was the pioneer of the movement. Robert Jephson, 
whose "Braganza" (1775) was heralded as 

"His; no French tragedy, — tame, polish'd, dull by rule! 
Vigorous he comes, and warm from Shakespeare's school," 

produced in 1781 an adapation of Walpole's "Castle 

of Otranto," called "The Count of Narbonne," which, 

as the epilogue boasts, 

" Midst the placid murmurings of Love 
Rolls the rough tide of Gothick force along." 

His " Julia " (1787), another popular play with his usual 

^ The elder Colman was a leader in this revival. Besides the few 
comedies which remained on the stock list and "Philaster," which was 
frequently acted at this time, the following Elizabethan plays were re- 
vived in the decade 1778-88: Bonduca, Bondman, City Madam, Duke 
of Milan, Knight of Malta, A King and No King, Marcella (based 
on The Changeling), Maid of Honor, The Picture, The Pilgrim, Scorn- 
ful Lady (altered as The Capricious Lady), Triumph of Honor, Women 
Pleased. 



BEGINNINGS OF ROMANTICISM 323 

abundance of soliloquies, tells a story of Elizabethan 
villany; and there were a few other Gothic attempts, 
as Cumberland's "Carmelite" (1784), before Lewis's 
"Castle Spectre" (1797) carried the town by storm. The 
further history of the terrific tragedies belongs to the 
next chapter, as^ does that of the German importations 
which culminated in the craze for Kotzebue, but it may 
be noted here that " Werter," acted in 1785, and " Emilia / 
Galotti," acted in 1794, were among the earlier indica- 
tions of German influence on the stage. 

By 1790 the decadence of English tragedy had appar- 
ently run its course and nearly come to a full stop. The 
freedom and independence of Elizabethan days had 
degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly de- 
finite type. That type, maintained in the Restoration 
period, though with modifications and innovations, had 
now become conventionalized, debased, sterile. French 
influence had proved unprocreative. In spite of the ac- 
tivities of the theatres, the inspiration of Shakespeare, 
and the assistance of great actors and actresses, tragedy 
had failed to produce literature comparable to that of 
its rival, the novel. The drama, to be sure, had played 
a large part, both in tragedy and comedy, in reflecting 
and promoting the sentimentality and moralizing com- 
mon in the literature of the century; Otway, Southerne, 
and Rowe had in a way fathered the sentimental novels. 
But in tragedy their Isabellas and Calistas had no suc- 
cessors to rank with Clarissa and Amelia. If tragedy 
through its alliance with sentiment failed of permanent 



324 TRAGEDY 

advance, it was still more unsuccessful in representing 
the reasonableness, typicality, and austerity which the 
classical conception required. It was half-hearted, turn- 
ing now to Shakespeare, now to Voltaire, but never pro- 
ducing anything not conventionalized and dull. The 
escapes from its dullness remained until the very end 
of the century only half -opened doors. Through the 
door opened by "Barnwell" and "The Gamester," the 
drama saw only the broad path that led back to senti- 
mentality and overlooked the straight and narrow way 
leading to realism and truth. Over the threshold that 
opened to medieval castles and chambers of horrors it 
was still hesitating. The divorce between literature and 
the stage had widened, and tragedy failed to attract 
genius to its rescue. Crabbe did not write a tragedy of 
the village, and Burns did not summon poetry and pas- 
sion to the stage. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ward's History of Dramatic Literature ends with the death of Queen 
Anne; and there is no adequate history of the EngHsh drama for the 
last two centuries, and no good bibHography. Genest continues to be 
the main source of information. Lowe's Bibliographical Account and 
the histories of the theatre noted in the last chapter are useful for the 
matter of the present. In addition, The History and Illustration of 
the London Theatres, by Chas. Dibdin, Jr. (1826); Victor's History 
of the Theatres of Lcmdon and Dublin (1761); W. C. Dalton's History 
of the Theatres, 1771-95; and The Dramatic Censor (1770) become 
available for this period. A large number of memoirs of actors also 
supply information in regard to the drama. An Apology for the Life 
of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by himself (1750), reviews the Re- 
storation period as well. Others of interest are: Davies's Memx)irs of 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 325 

Garrick (1780); Murphy's Life of Garrick (1801); Boaden's Memoirs 
of Mrs. Siddons (1827) and Memoirs of Kemble (1825); Cumberland's 
Memoir (1806) ; Mudford's Critical Examination of the Writings of 
Richard Cumberland, etc. (1812); Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald 
(1833); Private Correspondence of David Garrick (1831-32); Holcroft's 
Memoirs, ed. by Hazlitt (1816) ; Cooke's Memoirs of Charles Macklin 
(2d ed., 1808). 

The plays by authors of note can be found in the collected editions of 
their works, the more popular plays in the various collections noted in the 
last chapter. The majority of the tragedies, however, have never been re- 
printed and can be obtained only in the original editions. Dramatic criti- 
cism of the period can be studied in various essays by Addison, Steele, 
Gildon, Dennis, and Dr. Johnson, especially his Preface to the edition 
of Shakespeare and his Lives of the Poets. Lord Kames's Elements of 
Criticism (1762) was highly approved in its own day; and several essays 
on tragedy are of historical interest : William Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy 
(1747); IVIrs. Montagu's Essay on the Genius and Writing of Shake- 
speare (1769); Edwin Taylor's Cursory Remarks on Tragedy (1774): 
William Cook's Elements of Dramatic Criticism (1775); and Hodson's 
Observations on Tragedy, prefixed to his tragedy Zoraida (1780). 

Beljame's Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre bears on 
this as on the preceding chapter. Voltaire's influence on English 
tragedy has never been fully studied, but the following recent books 
bear on his relations with England: A. Ballantyne's Voltaire's Visit 
to England (18^3) ; J. Churton Collins's Bolingbroke, a historical study, 
and Voltaire in England (1886); Lounsbury's Shakespeare and Voltaire 
(1902), which gives much information on the drama and criticism of 
the period and sufficient directory to Voltaire's comment on the Eng- 
lish drama; and Jusserand's Shakespeare en France, which is also 
very valuable for this period. Miss Canfield's study of Comeille and 
Racine in England is also of marked service; and L. Morel's James 
Thomson (Paris, 1895) gives a very full study of Thomson's plays and 
literary relations. The Belles-Lettres Series contains editions with intro- 
ductions of plays of Rowe, ed. Miss Sophie Hart; and of Lillo, ed. A. W\ 
Ward (1906). Dr. Ward's introduction is particularly valuable for its 
sketch of the course of domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy on the 
continent. From the notes in these various studies, and from La Litter a- 
ture comparee, essai bibliographique, by Louis P. Betz, Strasbourg, 1904, 
direction can be had to a number of monographs dealing with special 
phases of the relations between the dramas of England and France, 
and, toward the end of the century, between England and Germany. 




CHAPTER X 

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT 

HE last few years of the eighteenth century 
and the first few of the nineteenth made up 
a decade full of movement and change in the 
drama. The eighteenth century had been, 
as we have seen, a time of stagnation in tragedy and of 
little dramatic advance in any direction. The theatre- 
goer of 1720 would in 1780 have found the same plays 
or others similar in kind; but, had he postponed his 
visit yet twenty years, he would have entered a new 
theatrical world of romance, musical plays, and German 
novelties. By that time nearly all the factors of impor- 
tance in the history of the stage during the first half 
of the nineteenth century had made their appearance. 
New departures in both tragedy and comedy, and a 
theatrically important tertium quid were all instituted. 
And new ideas, new themes, and new stories witnessed 
the changing taste and gave promise of the enlargement 
of the imaginative horizon which the hew romanticism 
was to produce. 

We have seen that, while neither realistic tragedy nor 
sentimental comedy had experienced a notable devel- 
opment, they had been departures from long-standing 
conventions. Tragedies in three acts, tragedies in prose, 



KOTZEBUE 327 

tragedies on domestic themes, tragedies without princes, 
tragedies of the present, all gave some encouragement 
for further novelty and experiment. The several varie- 
ties of "soft tragedy and genteel comedy" departed far 
enough from the standards of both species to suggest a 
dramatic development that should discard the traditional 
limitations. This changing taste, however, was seized 
by German plays and dramatized ''tales of terror." The 
large and varied influence of German poetry, criticism, 
and philosophy upon the romantic movement in England 
can be noticed here only so far as it affected the drama. 
The plays of Lessing and the early plays of Goethe and 
Schiller made little impression on the English stage, 
though they exercised an immediate influence on the read- 
ing public and on most of the young men "standing 
on the forehead of the age to come." The conquest of 
the English stage was made at its point of greatest vul- 
nerability — its sentimentality — by one who seemed 
the very Napoleon of the drama, Kotzebue, the con- 
queror of the theatres of all western Europe. In 1798 
" The Stranger " (" Menschenhass und Reue ") took Drury 
Lane by storm, and the next year Sheridan's "Pizarro," 
an adaptation of "Die Spanier in Peru," plus some 
eloquence and some songs, gained a still more brilliant 
success and drew even George III to the theatre. For 
several years Kotzebue reigned supreme; twenty or 
more of his plays were translated; many were acted; 
"Pizarro" alone had passed through twenty-nine edi- 
tions by 1811, besides other English and American ver- 



328 TRAGEDY 

sions of the play. Kotzebue's triumph was due in part 
to his great skill in stage-craft, and in part to his adroit 
appeal to the more superficial sentiments for social and 
political revolution that were everywhere stirring. When 
it is compared with preceding sentimental comedy, the 
success of "The Stranger" is easily understood. It has 
the theatrical merit of arousing curiosity at the begin- 
ning and keeping it on question until the last moment ; 
and it deals, over-sentimentally of course, with a social 
question of dramatic value and of especial piquancy at 
a time when many conventions seemed tottering, — 
should an erring wife be taken back again by her hus- 
band ? The theme of " A Woman Killed with Kindness," 
" Jane Shore," and " The Fair Penitent" was given a new 
interest and a new solution. "Pizarro," retaining much 
of the plot familiar in English tragedy since the time of 
Dryden's "Indian Emperor," has two lovers, opponents 
in war, and two heroines, ^ne vengeful, the other angelic, 
but makes the real hero the renouncing lover, who sac- 
rifices all for the happiness of the angel who loves not 
him but his friend. Under these new auspices the fair 
penitent and the renunciatory hero began long careers 
in English drama and fiction. But neither these nor any 
other of Kotzebue's plays offered any guidance toward 
a serious interpretation of life or any innovations of real 
consequence in the English tragic tradition. 

If Kotzebue's plays . off ered little promise for the na- 
tional drama, the native plays which rivaled them in 
popularity offered less. Castles, monks, dungeons, and 



3 MONK LEWIS 329 

so on had already become somewhat common in musi- 
cal plays and operas^ and occasionally in tragedies, when 
*' The Castle Spectre " of Monk Lewis opened the flood- 
gates to "tales of terror" and their medieval and super- 
natural paraphernalia. "The Castle Spectre," which 
in the season of 1797-98 surpassed "The Stranger" and 
for a while held its own with Kotzebue, represents a new 
reign of romance. The new queen did not come from 
"perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." She belonged to 
the earlier days of the romantic movement, and made 
her conquest at the head of squadrons of medievalistic, 
terroristic, and Germanistic Goths. She is adequately 
described in the prologue to the play : — 

" Far from the haunts of men, of vice the foe, 
The moon-struck child of genius and of woe, 
Versed in each magic spell, and dear to fame, 
A fair enchantress dwells, Romance her name, 
She loathes the sun or blazing taper's light: 
The moon-beam'd landscape and tempestuous night 
Alone she loves; and oft, with glimmering lamp, 
Near graves new-opened, or midst dungeons damp, 
Drear forests, ruin'd aisles, and haunted towers,- 
Forlorn she roves, and raves a\^ay the hours! 
Anon, when storms howl loud and lash the deep, 
Desperate she climbs the sea-rock's beetling steep; 
There wildly strikes her harp's fantastic strings. 
Tells to the moon how grief her bosom wrings, . 
And while her strange song chaunts fictitious ills. 
In wounded hearts Oblivion's balm distils." 

The " drama," as it was called, is in prose, and is a 
medley of the various terroristic, novels, including the 

^ See The Haunted Tower, an opera (1789), acted eighty times in 
two seasons. 



330 TRAGEDY 

two most famous, " The Castle of Otranto " and " The 
Mysteries of Udolpho," and adding something from 
Schiller's "Robbers" and from Shakespeare. There is 
a haunted castle, a jocose monk, a fool, a marvelous 
dungeon, a fisherman's hut, a ghost, a midnight bell, 
and songs and elaborate scenery. The villain, a feudal 
baron attended by negroes, is finally killed by the heroine, 
who saves her imprisoned father and escapes with the 
hero. 

The signs of life that succeeded the long petrifaction 
of the eighteenth century drama and the beginning of 
the revolutionary epoch thus resulted only in theatrical 
novelties and in no serious dramatic movement. All 
serious drama was, indeed, threatened by the ascend- 
ancy of the "illegitimate" drama of music and dumb 
show. The causes leading to the rise of this class and 
its ensuing history were in large measure connected with 
the theatres themselves. Even before the new romanti- 
cism had invaded the drama, changes in theatrical con- 
ditions of far-reaching importance were well under way. 
The monopoly exercised by the Drury Lane and Covent 
Garden theatres was first threatened about 1730 by the 
success of a few minor theatres which gave musical, 
acrobatic, or dramatic entertainments. The old theatres 
were successful in maintaining their monopoly in regu- 
lar plays, but the irregular houses gained permission to 
give performances under the loosely defined term " bur- 
letta." A *' burletta " was supposed to have a musical 
accompaniment, but it proved diflScult to say how little 



THE ILLEGITIMATE DRAMA 331 

music and how much of a drama might be included 
under the term. Henceforth, the regular drama had, 
in addition to the rivalry of Italian and English operas, 
that of musical and dramatic medleys ; and the patent 
houses had to face the rivalry of playhouses that in- 
fringed as far as they dared on the legitimate drama. 
The patent theatres, with their vested rights in the stock 
plays and their obligation to maintain Dryden, Otway, 
and Shakespeare, offered no great inducements to new 
authors. This was particularly true, after the rebuilding 
and enlargement of both theatres in 1791 and 1794, 
when the increased cost of bringing out a play and the 
increased difficulty in acting or hearing an unfamiliar 
play led Kemble practically to abandon any attempt to 
produce new tragedies. The minor theatres, which were 
growing in importance, legally limited to the field of 
musical performances, and excluded from the regular 
drama except by trick, could offer little support to the 
serious dramatist. As a result, musical plays, operettas, 
and finally a new type, the " melodrame," flourished in 
the minor houses and found their way soon into the 
two great theatres. When in 1808-09 these were burned, 
the rivalry with the minors had become acute. The old 
theatres were rebuilt of so great a size that they proved 
unsuitable for any spoken drama. Through their great 
actors, Kemble, Kean, and later Macready, they main- 
tained Shakespearean drama and a few of the old stock 
plays; but they were forced for the rest of the time to 
resort to melodrama, spectacle, or pantomime. The 



332 TRAGEDY 

minors, though they now became more daring in their 
invasions of legitimate drama, naturally continued the 
kind of entertainments at which they had succeeded and 
to which they had forced the great theatres to succumb. 
The long struggle for a free stage was now nearing its 
end; the patent theatres were maintained with increas- 
ing diflSculty; the minors prospered. With the death of 
Kean in 1833, a great prop of the patent theatres fell; 
and though the agitation for parliamentary reform in 
that year failed, and the final legislation against theat- 
rical monopoly was not passed until 1847, the great 
theatres ceased to determine the history of the drama. 
Macready's two periods of management, 1837-39 and 
1841-43, were the final efforts to restore the old regime 
that had maintained tragedy since the Restoration. 

The " illegitimate" drama that triumphed in the thea- 
tres comprised a wide range of entertainments, mostly 
farcical in their dramatic elements. Toward the end of 
the eighteenth century the rage for dumb show and musi- 
cal additions invaded the regular drama. Even Kotzebue 
had to be decked out with songs and choruses. More- 
over, a peculiar species of the illegitimate drama de- 
veloped in the plays of Andrews, Dibdin, Reynolds, 
Boaden, and Colman the younger that served as a half 
substitute for tragedy. This species seems to have been 
mainly due to the ingenuity of George Colman. Those 
of his plays verging on tragedy, of which "The Battle 
of Hexham" (1789), "The Surrender of Calais" (1791), 
"The Mountaineers" (1793), and "The Iron Chest" 



THE ILLEGITIMATE DRAMA 333 

(1796) are the chief, are lively medleys of tragedy, comedy, 
opera, and farce. In each a tragic story is told in blank 
verse, audaciously Shakespearean, and this is mixed 
with broad comedy or farce in prose. There is a bustling 
action with shifting scenes, much spectacle, many songs, 
solos, duets, or choruses, for which a crowd of soldiers, 
monks, beggars, foresters, or the like, is always within 
call. " The Surrender of Calais " tells the story of Queen 
Philippa's mercy ; " The Iron Chest " is a dramatization 
of "Caleb Williams"; "The Battle of Hexham" is a 
sort of musicalized chronicle history, presenting the 
adventures of Adeline in search of her husband, who 
turns out to be a captain of a band of robbers and the 
rescuer of Queen Margaret and the prince after the 
battle of Hexham. "The Mountaineers," suggested 
by a story in " Don Quixote," finds its land of romance 
in Spain, where a Christian prisoner elopes with the 
daughter of his Moorish jailer, accompanied by a stage 
Irishman as gracioso; and this group, when recaptured, 
are rescued by Octavian, a half -mad tragic soliloquizer, 
who also recovers his long-lost love, and was thought 
to be extremely impressive when impersonated by Kem- 
ble. In his use of all the well-worn motives of serious 
drama and his constant imitation of Shakespearean and 
Elizabethan diction, Colman displays remarkable clever- 
ness as well as the most cheerful effrontery. He repre- 
sents, too, a curious stage in the history of tragedy. 
He was born and bred in the theatre and had an excep- 
tional opportunity to become familiar with the Eliza- 



334 TRAGEDY 

bethan drama through his father's revivals and editorial 
labors. His method was to start with some incident, like 
that of Queen Philippa, and to connect with it any scenes 
that suggested themselves as interesting and varied, so 
that the motives, types of character, situations, and the 
very phrases of the Elizabethan and the later stock plays 
reappear to play their parts in his variety shows. He 
did not burlesque ; in fact, he imitated so well that, while 
the judicious might grieve, the vulgar subscribed to pity 
and terror when his plays were performed by the great 
actors of the day. He popularized, vulgarized, and 
musicalized the great traditions of English tragedy, and 
passed them along to the nineteenth century as the pos- 
session of the illegitimate drama. 

At the height of Colman's career, however, the ille- 
gitimate drama found a still more powerful ally. Eng- 
lishmen who in 1802 went to Paris to enjoy the peace 
were delighted with an entirely new kind of theatrical 
entertainment there, the melodrame. The industrious 
Holcroft promptly translated its most successful repre- 
sentative, and "The Tale of Mystery" heralded the 
long ascendancy of this new species of drama in England 
and America. The peculiar novelties of the melodrame 
were the supplementing of the dialogue by a large amount 
of dumb show and the accompaniment of both dialogue 
and dumb show by descriptive orchestral music; other- 
wise, with its songs, sensations, and mechanical devices, 
it resembled the preceding musical drama of Colman 
and others. With this new recruit, the illegitimate held 



MELODRAMA 335 

full sway. Its influence spread into all dramatic per- 
formances, and many regular plays were supplemented 
by songs, music, spectacle, or machinery. From the 
start, melodrame allied itself to most of the paraphernalia 
of medievalism and of the terrific school, but it soon 
showed the capacity for absorbing varied material. Rey- 
nolds in 1812 turned Dryden's "Don Sebastian" into 
a musical play in three acts written in prose; equestrian 
combats, real water, cataracts, and machinery for thril- 
ling escapes became usual adjuncts. Soon Scott's poems 
and novels supplied splendid material. As each novel 
appeared the theatres vied with one another in bringing 
out the first melodramatization ; and often several ver- 
sions were acted at the same time. Macready gained 
one of his first large successes with "Rob Roy" in a 
version that reduced Di Vernon to a singing part (1818). 
Any kind of a story, providing it offered strange scenes, 
an exciting and lively action, and marked contrasts 
between bad and good among the characters, lent itself 
readily to a dramatization that required a minimum of 
dialogue and a maximum of action, music, and machinery. 
Comic scenes were, of course, de rigueur. " The Slave," 
by Morton, was one of the most enduring of the Colman- 
esque type. The serious plot, which presents Gambia, 
the slave, as the sacrificing hero, borrows from "The 
Curfew" and "Oronooko," and for its great scene im- 
proves upon the escape over the bridge in "Pizarro."^ 

^ Its borrowings are noted by Genest, viii, 603. The scene is quoted 
in Archer's Life of Macready (Eminent Actors Series), p. 40. 



336 TRAGEDY 

After Clifton and Zelinda (whom Gambia hopelessly adores) 
escape across the hanging bridge, Gambia climbs up the tree 
from which it is suspended and cuts the rope. The pursuing 
villains are foiled on the brink. "We are safe, my husband," 
cries Zelinda from the other side; but her child, safely hidden 
by Gambia, hears her voice, and runs from his hiding-place, — 
on the wrong side of the river. 

Child. It was my mother's voice ! Mother ! mother ! 

Zelinda. Alas! my child! 

Somerdyke. Her child ! Then we triumph — seize him ! 
(A slave seizes the child, and, running up a point of rock, hands 
it to Somerdyke, who continues.) Move one step further, and 
you will see him buried in the waters. Submit, or this instant 
is his last. (Holding him up in the act of precipitating him.) 

Zelinda. I do submit. 

Gambia. Never ! (Gambia, who has concealed himself in the 
branches, snatches the child up into the tree.) Father, receive 
your child! (Throws the child across the stream.) They have 
him! He is safe! Ha! Ha! Ha! (Curtain.) 

The term "melodrama" ceased after a time to denote 
the peculiar species brought from France in 1802, and 
came to be applied to all plays depending for effect on 
situation, sensation, or machinery, rather than charac- 
terization. The musical accompaniment and songs 
became minor features; the lively action, elaborate 
mechanical devices, dumb show, strong contrast of vir- 
tue and evil, and the happy ending remained the essen- 
tials. There was thus created a kind of inferior tragedy 
aiming at no literary excellence, which has ever since 
continued to fill the theatres and to satisfy the larger 
public. This natural reaction from eighteenth century 
dullness and declamation to bustle, pantomime, and 



MELODRAMA 337 

music did not further, as in France, any immediate de- 
velopment in the Hterary drama. There was in England 
no relationship between the two as between Pixerecourt 
and Hugo. On the contrary, melodrama in England 
offered nothing new, for it absorbed about all that was 
old. All the well-worn situations, the escapes, rivalries, 
sacrifices, of the English stock plays were preserved, 
and to these was added whatever French melodrama 
offered. In this way there is curiously preserved in the 
cheaper theatres to-day the direct results of theatrical 
traditions going back before Shakespeare. 

The illegitimate drama also represented the prevail- 
ing tendencies of Romanticism. Its fondness for Shake- 
spearean and Elizabethan motives, its medievalism, its 
terrors, its democratic and humanitarian sentiments 
indicate the popularization of romantic ideas. These 
found expression suited to immediate public approval, 
not in Wordsworth but Kotzebue, not in Coleridge but 
Colman, not in Southey but in melodrama. And as the 
popularization of literature has increased, this illegiti- 
mate offspring of the drama has continued to respond 
to changes in public sentiment and thought by a recourse 
to well-worn theatrical means. During the nineteenth 
century, melodrama has thrust tragedy from the theatres 
and from public favor. Crowded out by the opera and 
again by the novel and now by the melodrama, tragedy 
has tended either to assume the garb of its rivals, or to 
conform its appeal to a select audience. 

In the period from 1800 to 1830 the novel and the 



338 TRAGEDY 

melodrama and the melodramatized novel all united to 
restrict the demand for pure tragedy. The breach be- 
tween the theatre and literature which the eighteenth 
century had opened was widened. In the theatre new 
plays and especially new plays with tragic, romantic, 
or heroic plots, were adapted from Scott's novels or 
otherwise devised by a comparatively small group of 
men. These men, Reynolds, Morton, Soane, Terry, 
Dibdin, and others, were associated with the theatres, 
understood the arrangement of scenery and spectacle, 
were quick to foresee the taste of the audience, and pre- 
tended to little literary skill, for none was required. 
Their work created a new distinction in the drama, a 
species, melodrama, or tragedy if you please, that can 
be acted but cannot be read. On the other hand, the 
literary romanticists, while usually having no connection 
with the stage and despairing of its reform, by no means 
relinquished the field of tragedy. Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
Byron, Shelley, Landor, Scott, Keats, and many other 
lesser poets wrote tragedies, and most were not unwilling 
to' have these acted. These plays fall into two main 
classes, those that were acted and carried on the tradition 
of tragedy in the theatres, and those that were not acted. 
This second class, which for the first time becomes of 
some importance in the history of literature, has itself 
several divisions. There are tragedies intended for the 
stage but failing to get a trial there. There are others 
which, while not intended for the stage, conform in the 
main to its requirements, and might easily be adapted 



JOANNA BAILLIE 339 

for presentation. There are others, Hke "Cain" or 
Wells's " Joseph and his Brethren " or Swinburne's later 
plays, Avhich violate almost all the requirements of the 
theatre. These form another dramatic species, the op- 
posite of melodrama, plays that can be read but cannot 
be acted. Some of these various classes of closet drama 
influenced the acted drama, others have so little dramatic 
quality that they are at most " dramatic poems," but all 
have a connection with the tradition of tragedy. Most 
of the literary tragedies are indeed, despite variations 
in degree, alike in kind. They are all written in verse; 
they are all romantic rather than realistic; they mostly 
return to Shakespeare and the Elizabethans for models; 
and they nearly all disregard the stage demand. Whether 
they loathe the stage or ask for admittance there, they 
seek literary rather than theatrical excellence. At the 
time when the stage demanded action and was super- 
seding dialogue and speech by music, spectacle, and 
dumb show, the romanticists conceived of tragedy only 
in terms of poetry, and wrote mainly in order to clothe 
their tragic themes in the beauty of verse. 

The most determined attempt to reform tragedy was 
made by Miss Joanna Baillie, who, in the year of the 
" Lyrical Ballads," published the first volume of her 
"Plays on the Passions," containing "Basil," a tragedy, 
and "The Trial," a comedy, both on love, and "De 
Montfort," a tragedy on hatred, with a preface announ- 
cing her intention to continue the series, illustrating each 
of the dominant passions by a tragedy and a comedy. 



340 TRAGEDY 

Her preface, which should have found sympathetic re- 
sponse in the young men who at Alfoxden were pohshing 
their own tragedies and planning a revolution in poetry, 
exhibits the main fallacy of the romanticists' theory of 
the drama. She proposed to devote a play to the illustra- 
tion of a single passion, to trace this from its beginning 
to the final ruin, and to recognize that passion arises from 
within, unprovoked by any external stimulus. This ab- 
sorption with a study of emotion jper se led to a subordi- 
nation of plot and all external incident, and — so she 
proposed — all poetic embellishment, to a searching 
study of isolated passion. Her first volume attracted 
attention, and Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played "De 
Montfort," but without success. She continued, how- 
ever, writing and publishing, completing the series of 
plays on passions, and as many more "miscellaneous 
plays," twenty-eight in all, of which fifteen were tra- 
gedies. These present a variety of themes, one being a 
domestic play in prose, another dealing with witchcraft, 
but the favorite setting is medieval with gloomy vaults, 
krfights, monks, singing nuns, and the moon shining 
through vaulted windows. Her conception of a play of 
passion forbids motiving of character, or integration of 
the development of character with action. As Hazlitt 
acidly observed, she manipulates her actors like a girl 
playing with her dolls. There are many improbabilities, 
and the passions are exposed mainly in soliloquies. The 
language avoids ornamentation to a degree that makes 
one wonder why it is not in prose, though there are pur- 



WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE 341 

pie patches. It rarely if ever betrays any adaptability 
to the individual speakers. Though the plays were 
designed for the stage and overflow with stage-directions 
and much spectacle, scenery, and excitement, the technic 
shows scarcely a bowing acquaintance with the theatre. 
A few of the plays were acted, one being melodramatized, 
but none proved effective. They gained, however, the ad- 
miration of Campbell, Byron, and Scott, and of a wide 
circle of readers. Their morality, their proximity to 
poetry, their definiteness of purpose won a popular ap- 
preciation for their analyses of passion, denied to more 
imaginative, subtle, or revolutionary poems. Her plays, 
if forbidden the theatres, invaded the prairies and forest 
primeval ; and Miss Baillie was justly gratified by receiv- 
ing a diploma " constituting her a member of the Michi- 
gan Historical Society." 

Wordsworth and Coleridge were in 1796-97, like Miss 
Baillie, writing tragedies of passions^ arising from within 
and ending in ruin, and, like her, they were seeking 
presentation in the theatres. Wordsworth's " Borderers " 
treats of the deep springs of villany, and was based, as 
he thought, on his experiences with human nature in 
France during the revolutionary period, but he seems 
rather to have made a study of Shakespeare's lago op- 
erating in a band of Schiller's robbers, and animated by 
the abhorrent principles of Godwin's " Political Justice." 

^ The Fall of Robespierre (1794), by Southey and Coleridge, and 
Southey's Wat Tyler (1817), written in 1794, hardly require even men- 
tion as tragedies. 



342 TRAGEDY 

Coleridge's "Osorio," a study of remorse, also derived 
its inspiration from books rather than from observation. 
Sixteen years later, in 1813, remodeled and pruned of 
some of its earlier radicalism, it won as "Remorse" a 
fair stage success, and led a partial revival of the poetical 
drama in the theatres. The plot of a wicked brother who 
reports the death of the good brother and seeks to win 
his betrothed, was suggested by " The Robbers " ; the in- 
quisition, sorcery, cavern, dungeon, and other elements of 
the spectacle were derived from the Radcliffian school ; but 
the main inspiration was Shakespeare. Coleridge planned 
a revenge play, with a characteristic modification; the 
avenger was to seek, instead of blood, the remorse of the 
villain. The elaborate plot, which might have done duty 
for an Elizabethan revenge play or for one of Lewis's 
romances, has no connection with the main theme of the 
play. The opening acts disclosfe everything, and the 
interest in the full awakening of remorse in the wicked 
brother is not contributed to by the intrigue, magic, and 
insurrection, nor is it made veracious in the madness to 
which the remorse drives. But both the beautiful de- 
scriptive poetry and the underlying searching for tragic 
passion inspired other poets drama-ward. "Zapolya" 
(1817) has little philosophical interest underlying its 
romantic plot, suggested by the "Winter's Tale," but 
it displays a conscious effort to provide the movement, 
variety, spectacle, and surprise needful for the stage. 
Coleridge gave these in an Elizabethan profusion that 
must have overwhelmed the managers. But even had 



CHARLES LAMB 343 

he made the revisions that they required, he could hardly 
have prevented his poetry from impeding rather than 
adorning his melodramatic action. 

Charles Lamb's single tragedy, " John Woodvil " 
(1802), was v^^ritten and offered to Kemble in 1799. 
Southey's comment, " (it) will please you by the exquisite 
beauty of its poetry and provoke you by the exquisite 
silliness of its story," comes near to being the final word. 
The verse catches something of Shakespeare's sweetness 
and artlessness as well as his obsolescent words, and the 
few persons and the silly story catch something of Lamb's 
own simplicity and charity. The play is more human, 
though feebler, than the contemporary plays of Miss 
Baillie, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Lamb imitates 
the Elizabethans with much more charm than they, and 
he utterly disdains the stage spectacle which they admit, 
but, like them, he seeks to explore the heart without re- 
gard to what is happening outside and discloses its se- 
crets by means of inordinate soliloquizing. " The Wife's 
Trial," based on Crabbe's "Confidant," was written in 
1827, and refused by Charles Kemble. This tragicomedy, 
as Lamb called it, in two acts, is slighter than " Woodvil " 
and even less adapted to the stage. 

From Miss Baillie's "De Montfort" (1800) to Cole- 
ridge's "Remorse" (1813), Hterary tragedy made no im- 
pression on the theatre. Godwin's plays, "Antonio" 
(1800) and "Faulkner" (1807), failed flatly, and Tobin's 
" Curfew," a medley of Elizabethan motives, was the 
most successful acted tragedy. When Lewis tried to give 



344 TRAGEDY 

his terrific vein a little dignity and blank verse, even he 
failed on the stage. ^ 

After " Remorse '* the theatre half opened its doors to 
literature and the poets rallied to the support of tragedy. 
Maturin's "Bertram'* (1816) had a large success, though 
his other plays failed. In the next few years a half dozen 
wordy tragedies by Sheil were acted. Kean revived ver- 
sions of the "Jew of Malta" and "The Fatal Dowry," 
and the most successful of Sheil's plays was " Evadne," 
based on Shirley's "Traitor." Milman's "Fazio," acted 
1818, though not intended for the stage, came nearer 
perhaps than any preceding tragedy of the romanticists 
to meeting theatrical requirements. Fazio's wife, jealous 
because of his infatuation for a countess, betrays her 
husband, and then for the remainder of the play is wildly 
remorseful. In spite of the extreme improbability of 
both the persons and the language, the story is told with 
dramatic directness and affords manifest opportunities 
for a great actress, seized upon by Miss O'Neill and 
later by Miss Cushman and, in an Italian adaptation, 
by Madame Ristori. A still greater theatrical success 
was won by Kean in "Brutus" (1818), a pastiche of the 
plays of Lee, Cumberland, and Downman composed by 
the American, John Howard Payne. Sheridan Knowles's 
"Virginius" (1820), followed by his "Caius Gracchus" 
(1823), and "William Tell" (1825), gave promise of a 

^ In this and the two following paragraphs the bracketed dates are 
those of the first performances in London. Some of the plays were first 
acted elsewhere. ' . 



POETICAL DRAMA ON THE STAGE 345 

more permanent revival of the poetical drama. Knowles, 
an actor and a practical playwright, was also the friend 
and in a way the pupil of Lamb and Hazlitt, and he 
gained the cooperation of a great and ambitious actor, 
Macready. He united as no other writer of the generation 
had done, stage-craft and poetic ideals. " Virginius," the 
best of his tragedies, is still acted — excepting Bulwer- 
Lytton's " Richelieu," the only relic of early nineteenth 
century tragedy. The story, with its one great acting 
scene, is told after the Shakespearean model in very ornate 
and artificial verse. It mingles much scoffing at the rabble 
with romantic appeals for liberty, tricks Virginia out 
with a lover, and ends with the insanity of Virginius. 
Knowles's tragedies at the time of their presentation 
were only moderately successful, far less so than his 
absurd comedy, "The Hunchback"; and several poetic 
dramas by other writers fared worse. Thomas Wade's 
"Woman's Love," based on the Patient Griselda story, 
obtained a hearing in 1808, but his Marlowesque " Jew 
of Aragon " was hooted off the stage in 1830. But Proc- 
ter's "Mirandola" was acted sixteen times in 1821, and 
Miss Mitford's "Rienzi" (1828) and Byron's "Werner" 
(1830) gained veritable triumphs. 

For about a decade longer poetic tragedy continued to 
contend for the theatre. Its main hope lay in Macready, 
and its hey-day was during his two periods of manage- 
ment of Drury Lane, 1837-39 and 1841-42. After the 
success of " Werner" (" Marino Faliero" had been earlier 
produced in 1821), " Sardanapalus " was brought out by 



346 TRAGEDY 

Macready in 1833-34; and "The Two Foscari" later. 
Knowles's "Alfred the Great" and his "Bridal," an 
adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tra- 
gedy," won considerable success; and "The Pledge," 
a version of Victor Hugo's "Hernani," in 1831 heralded 
new support for romantic poetry in the drama. In the 
years 1836-37 Macready introduced three new writers 
in the "Ion" of Talfourd, "Strafford" of Browning, 
and the "Duchess de la Valliere" of Bulwer-Lytton. 
Talfourd's tragedies, including two, "The Athenian 
Captive" and "Glencoe," later acted by Macready, 
are stiff and wooden, contributing little to the drama. 
Bulwer-Lytton's later plays, "The Lady of Lyons" 
(1838) and "Richelieu" (1839), were extremely success- 
ful and surpassed any preceding efforts of the roman- 
ticists to adapt poetry to the stage. "Richelieu" is 
by no means a great poem or free from claptrap, but 
it has the merit of being written to be spoken and in 
having its characters designed as parts of the action. 
The interest is not in the poetry — it reads much better 
with the omissions made for acting — but in the de- 
velopment of the character of the cardinal through the 
incidents. The failure of " The Blot on the 'Scutcheon " 
in 1843 marks the end of Macready's management and 
the end of romantic tragedy on the stage. 

Many of these acted plays gained what suitability they 
had for the stage by accident rather than design. Mil- 
man's "Fazio" was published several years before it 
was acted, and his later tragedies were decidedly closet 



CLOSET DRAMA 347 

dramas. Miss Mitford's " Julian " made little impression 
on the stage, and her other tragedies, except "Rienzi," 
still less. Byron's tragedies, which succeeded largely 
no doubt because of his reputation, were acted against 
his wish or after his death. And the various poetic tra- 
gedies that were written at about the same time as Byron's 
and Shelley's were mostly composed without thought of 
stage presentation. The surpassing genius of the greater 
poets has thrown into obscurity the work of these other 
young men, who in the decade after Waterloo faced the 
world with thin volumes of verse. But there have been 
few times in our literary history when the Muses have 
been so alluring, and Melpomene had her share of de- 
votees. In John Wilson's "City of the Plague" (1816) 
a young naval officer wanders about plague-stricken 
London, through its bacchanals and horrors, buries his 
mother, discovers his betrothed, the ministering angel 
of the afflicted, and at last finds rest with her in the ter- 
rible crowded churchyard. The poem is grandly con- 
ceived and beautifully written in verse, occasionally 
Wordsworthian but without affectation or over-orna- 
ment. Two other closet dramatists offer rather less sin- 
cerity and impressiveness of conception but even more 
of poetic beauty. " Joseph and his Brethren " (1823), 
by Charles Wells, for a time the friend of Keats, was 
published when the author was twenty-three, and fifty 
years later revived and rewritten because of the apprecia- 
tion of Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne. Like the plays of 
Thomas Wade, it shows the influence of Marlowe in 



348 TRAGEDY 

verse and plan. Long drawn out and in the main un- 
dramatic, there is imagination everywhere, especially in 
the remarkable scenes that depict the passion-inflamed 
Phraxanor, Potiphar's wife. Of the Elizabethans, too, 
was Beddoes, who studied Webster and Tourneur as well 
as Shelley and Keats, and whose verse at times fairly 
surpasses his masters. His "Bride's Tragedy" (1821), 
written when he was nineteen, is a play only in name, 
but it is a poem that joins terror and fascination as scarcely 
another since Webster and Ford. Here, as in his in- 
completed dramas and his "Death's Jest Book," pub- 
lished much later, loveliness masks with madness and 
death, and mockery with passion. It seems as if he were 
lavishing over strange juxtapositions of beauty and decay 
all the sensuous fascination of Keats and the lingering 
suggestiyeness of Shelley's lyrics. One's admiration for 
his genius is tempered only by the thought of the greater 
things he might have done. 

Earlier than these poems was Landor's " Count 
Julian" (1812), which, like them, presents qualities 
suited for the closet and not for the stage. As in some 
of the "Imaginary Conversations," Landor takes it for 
granted that his audience understands the story and the 
motives of the actors as well as he himself. The reader 
gradually disentangles the situations and is stirred by 
the splendid poetry; but no audience could make out 
what it was all about. His other poetical tragedies, written 
a quarter of a century later, show no improvement of 
these defects, nor do they present dramatic themes as 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 349 

interesting or as powerfully conceived as those in " Count 
Julian." 

"Otho the Great," the tragedy which Keats hoped 
would lift him out of the mire,^ was devised for Kean, 
and apparently accepted for Drury Lane. Charles Brown 
furnished him "description of each scene entire, with 
the characters to be brought forward, the events, and 
everything connected with it"; and Keats merely wrote 
the verse up to the fifth act, when he took the entire 
management into his own hands. The result of this pe- 
culiar collaboration was what might have been expected. 
The plot and characterization follow old types; and the 
poetry, though not lacking in fine passages, is inferior 
to nearly everything else that Keats wrote in his annus 
mirabilis, 1819. 

Scott's dramas are somewhat out of place when 
grouped with these other closet tragedies, for they are 
varied in character, representing a number of the pro- 
clivities that we have noticed in the romantic drama. ^ 
"The House of Aspen," written in prose at about the 
time of "Goetz," was intended for the stage and con- 
sidered by Kemble for representation. Based on a 
German tale and showing the influence of "Goetz," it 



^ "I mean the mire of a bad reputation which is continually rising 
against me. My name with the literary fashionables is vulgar. I am a 
weaver-boy to them. A tragedy would lift me out of this mess." Letter 
to his sister, December, 1819. 

2 The translation of Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen (1799), The 
House of Aspen (1830), Halidm Hill (1822), Macdujf's Cross (1823), 
The Doom of Devorgoil (1830), Auchindrane (1830). 



350 TRAGEDY 

offers no important deviations from the terroristic drama. 
"The Doom of Devorgoil," designed for Terry at the 
Adelphi, is a melodrama with many songs and a mixture 
of mimic gobHns with supernatural machinery that was 
found to be so objectionable as to prevent its performance. 
It is interesting as one of the very few cases in which a 
man of literary reputation undertook to meet the re- 
quirements of the illegitimate drama. None of the other 
plays, which are in blank verse, was intended for the 
stage. " Macduff's Cross " is a mere sketch in one act ; 
" Halidon Hill " a two-act dramatization of border war- 
fare; " Auchindrane," in three acts, is a more fully 
developed tragedy. "Halidon Hill" has a clearness and 
directness of characterization and a vigor of movement 
which sugggest that had the auspices been more favor- 
able, the historical drama might have had another great 
exponent. "Auchindrane," though retaining a little of 
the Radcliffian mystery and mystification which Scott 
never quite outgrew, also tells its domestic story with a 
directness and verisimilitude not usual among the roman- 
ticists. German translation, terroristic tragedy, spectral 
melodrama, dramatic sketches for the closet, and do- 
mestic tragedy are all illustrated by these six plays ; and 
their subjects and treatment also reflect the various at- 
tachments of Scott's literary career. They illustrate also 
the inability of literary genius to aid the theatre in this 
period, but they differ from most of the literary drama 
in their absence of subjectivity or attachment to theory. 
Byron's plays, like other poetical tragedies of the time. 



BYRON 351 

were written in accord with the writer's theories and 
counter to the prevaihng theatrical practices; but Byron 
prided himself on departing from the methods of the 
Elizabethans or of his fellow romanticists, and on follow- 
ing the guidance of eighteenth century models. " Marino 
Faliero," "The Two Foscari," and " Sardanapalus," 
all written 1820-21, attempt regularity of plot and ob- 
servance of the unities, and profess Alfieri as a model. 
The two Venetian plays, however, recall Otway's " Ven- 
ice Preserved," and their exaggeration of strange pas- 
sions is quite in accord with the general practice of the 
romanticists. The plots are improbable, though selected 
from history, and aloof from general interest, for the re- 
sentment of the old doge at the insult to his wife and the 
unyielding vengeance of Loredano and, indeed, all the 
major passions are treated with an extravagance that 
becomes melodramatic and renders the persons all but 
unintelligible. With " Sardanapalus " the case is differ- 
ent. The dissolute, luxurious, but nobly-aspiring hero 
and his better angel, Myrrha, derive from the characters 
of Byron and the Countess Guiccioli a truth of passion 
that animates the rapid and spectacular action. A tragedy 
of palace intrigue, after the eighteenth century type, is 
thus reanimated by the romantic fervor of its passion, 
philosophy, and poetry. Any time from " The Mourning 
Bride" to "Zenobia" it might have triumphed on the 
stage, and so it did triumph when finally acted; but it 
summoned only a tithe of Byron's power. Quite differ- 
ent from any of these three plays, his " Werner " was ob- 



352 TRAGEDY 

viously suited to its own day. Based on one of Harriet 
Lee's novels, it forsakes classical structure and ex- 
hibits all the paraphernalia and emotional horrors of the 
terrific drama. It was one of the greatest stage successes 
of the romantic drama, but it is no more deserving, 
either as a play or a poem, than a dozen of its rivals. 

Byron's other dramas depart farther than any of these, 
not only from fitness for the stage, but from likeness to 
any definite dramatic species. Of the four, however, 
all of which deal with a world of spirits, "Manfred" 
and "Cain" have tragic themes and protagonists. "It 
was," wrote Byron, "the Steinbach and the Jungfrau, 
and something else much more than Faustus that made 
me write Manfred." Nature, the ever-recurring theme 
of the romantic poets, is here given something akin to 
dramatic treatment. The impassioned descriptions create 
a presence, not one " that disturbs him with the joy of 
elevated thoughts," but " the wild comrade of Manfred's 
antipathy to men." ^ The mountains become sharers 
in the hero's tirades, though their nights' "dim and 
solitary loveliness" is the only power that curbs his 
fierce unrest. " Cain," less Ijrrical and far more distinct 
in its presentation of dramatic conflict, may rightly be 
claimed by romantic tragedy for its own. It is not merely 
Byron's own personality which finds expression here, 
but the revolt against convention and creed, so character- 
istic of the romantic movement. The demands of the 
individual man against society and providence make 
^ Herford, Age of Wordsioorth, p. 227. 



SHELLEY 353 

up the tragic theme. The tragedy of individual passion, 
leaping the bounds of history, romance, or actuality, is 
here divorced from the theatre, divorced indeed from any 
semblance to the models of tragedy; but in its symbolis- 
tic and allegorical presentation of philosophical question- 
ings still keeps close to the essentials of great dramatic 
art, the searching of the motives and conflicts of human 
passion. Cain is of the brotherhood of Marlowe's Faustus 
and Shakespeare's Hamlet and other tragic heroes who 
chafe against finite limitations, greatly seeking after 
knowledge and certainty, and finding the very curi- 
osity of their discontent the weapon of their own destruc- 
tion. The theme is an eternal one in tragedy, but it was 
left to the romanticists fully to realize its meaning, and 
to Byron to give it isolation and grandeur. 

Shelley's " Cenci " in a different way mirrors this eter- 
nal defeat that human struggle after justice must en- 
counter. Deeply impressed by the current tradition 
about Beatrice Cenci, he made this story of incest and 
parricide the expression of his view of life and history 
as a conflict between tyranny and downtrodden inno- 
cence. Nowhere else in Shelley, not even in " Prometheus 
Unbound," does this world drama come out of the clouds 
and reveal itself with such clarity and power. There is 
passion in the persons, climax in the situations, and 
directness in the language such as the romantic drama 
had rarely shown. The philosophical conception and 
the tangle of human motives do not indeed quite har- 
monize. Beatrice's lie and her unworthy seeking after 



354 TRAGEDY 

life are bits of the story which interfere with our accept- 
ance of Beatrice the martyr, flaws that Browning 
would not have admitted. On the other hand, Shelley's 
philosophy overrides the story, as may be seen by a com- 
parison of the tragedy with one of the earliest to show 
dawning romanticism. Walpole's " Mysterious Mother," 
which at this time Byron was praising as " the la&t tra- 
gedy," treats a more horrible story of incest with the in- 
terest mainly in the plot, holding in suspense the fearful 
solution until the end; "The Cenci" begins with the 
act of incest, and then tries to carry our interest solely 
to the two characters, one the embodiment of all inherited 
evil, the other, a pure and beautiful spirit striving madly 
and in vain to free herself from wrong that is might. The 
conquest of the stage, the writing of dramatic blank 
verse, and the endowment of this story of crime with 
representational truth were tasks too large to be accom- 
plished in a single play; but, though faulty in the de- 
tails of dramatic art, " The Cenci " is, for a first tragedy, 
without an equal in its mastery of the great essentials 
of tragic poetry. The poet who shrank from comedy as 
from a wicked thing and who thought a story of incest 
possible in a London theatre, had much to learn before 
he could master the stage. But " The Cenci " reveals the 
maturing Shelley, who was opening his mind to new im- 
pressions, admiring "Cain" and "Don Juan," profit- 
ing from iEschylus and Calderon as well as Shakespeare, 
and who was seeing his allegories clothed in human form, 
and no longer only in images of mist and flame. As one 



SHELLEY 355 

reads one wonders, — had the play not been the last as 
well as his first tragedy? had it come at the beginning 
instead of nearly at the close of the romantic movement ? 

In "Prometheus Unbound" there is even greater 
achievement in the presentation of this world conflict; 
and there Cain triumphs and Beatrice is purified. But 
the achievement is lyrical rather than dramatic, and has 
no proper place in the history of tragedy. 

In all these tragedies, whether acted or not, and 
whether works of genius or not, certain resemblances 
have been noted. They exhibit most of the elements that 
characterize the romantic movement as it stirred English 
poetry from the "Lyrical Ballads" to the first publica- 
tions of Tennyson and Browning. Without realism in 
plot or language, and dealing always with what is un- 
usual, improbable, and removed from the present, they 
made little effort to catch the interest of the average 
audience or to excite an interest common to ordinary 
experience. Their reaction against the frivolity of con- 
temporary melodrama was as decided as their reaction 
against eighteenth century conventionality; but both 
impulses led to poetry, passion, and Shakespeare, but 
not to drama. They did not succeed in working out cause 
and effect of character through incident; when they de- 
sired to gain stage effectiveness, they merely borrowed 
from current melodrama or from the Elizabethans. 

Elizabethan influence is usually apparent in the choice 
of themes, in the devising of plot and situations, and 
particularly in the figurative and ornate phrasing. The 



356 TRAGEDY 

revival of some Elizabethan plays on the stage, the vul- 
garization in the illegitimate drama of many of their 
incidents, and the general interest among readers at this 
time in the Elizabethan drama, all encouraged a fondness 
for madness, incest, battles, villany, and unrestrained 
passion of various kinds. In phrasing, the Elizabethan 
influence appears in all degrees ; in the sympathetic emu- 
lation of Keats, in the amazing reproductions of Beddoes, 
or in the starched artificiality of the poetic embellish- 
ments of Milman, Knowles, or Procter. In general the 
style is redundant and florid. In such plays as were 
adapted for the stage, it will almost always be found that 
the mere curtailing of the figures, soliloquies, and epi- 
sodes causes a marked improvement in the dramatic 
quality of the dialogue. Byron and Shelley both attempted 
to free their dramatic blank verse from conceits and 
artificialities, and to give it directness and lack of orna- 
mentation corresponding to natural speech. In conse- 
quence, Byron's blank verse often makes a slovenly 
approach to prose, and Shelley's loses something of the 
beauty of his non-dramatic masterpieces; but on the 
whole, " Sardanapalus " and still more "Cain" and 
"The Cenci" show their greatness in this as in other 
respects, in the dramatic quality of their verse. 

Many of the tragedies also exhihit the influence of the 
school of terror. The Radclifiian romances, the early 
German drama, and the spectral melodrama of the 
theatres all encouraged castles, dungeons, titans like 
Karl Moor, hallucinations, and ghosts. There is some- 



ROMANTICISM IN TRAGEDY 357 

thing of this in Beddoes's churchyards ; " Bertram " is 
a full-fledged drama of terror by one of the masters of 
the school; Byron's "Werner," itself a dramatization of 
a tale of terror, conforms to all the stage requirements 
of the species. After the tales of terror had gone out of 
fashion, the romanticists still found it easy on the stage 
to revert to haunted castles, inveterate villains, and in- 
dungeoned heroes. But in addition to the continuing- 
influence of "The Robbers" and the plays of "Monk" 
Lewis, there was arising the influence of " Faust " ^nd 
of Schiller's later plays. " Faust," which furnished hints 
for " Manfred " and " The Deformed Transformed," seems 
to have been regarded as a " tale of wonder," the story of 
the sale of a soul to the devil being a favorite with that 
class of fiction; but its philosophy perhaps also had 
its suggestions for both Byron and Shelley. Schiller's 
" Wallenstein, " translated by Coleridge, and " Mary 
Stuart" at least encouraged the prevailing fondness for 
historical themes and the study of passion. 

Medievalism continued its sway but with some new 
developments. The Waverley novels, the growing cos- 
mopolitanism of literature, the Italian residences of 
Byron and Shelley, in fact innumerable causes led to 
an expansion of the interest in the Middle Ages into an 
interest in the past. Literature, whether in Scott or Keats, 
was carrying its search for story and ideals, for pic- 
turesqueness and beauty, into past ages and remote 
climes. The treatment of history, which had formed no 
part of the plans of Miss Baillie, Wordsworth, or Cole- 



358 TRAGEDY 

ridge, now became essential to tragedy; and we find 
Byron keeping carefully to the historical sources of his 
tragedies of the doges, and Shelley adhering to a narra- 
tive of the Cenci murder, which he deemed authentic, 
though since proved legendary. Italian history seems 
to have exercised a general fascination. Miss Mitford 
wTote a tragedy on the Foscari independently of Byron's, 
as well as her " Rienzi " ; and " Fazio " and " Mirandola " 
dealt with Italian stories. The choice, however, was 
mainly for grandiose historical events, as " Sardanapalus," 
"Virginius," "Lucius Junius Brutus," " Richelieu," and 
Milman's " Fall of Jerusalem." Some of these attracted 
by the opportunity to praise liberty, meaning Catholic 
emancipation and electoral reform, and the denunciation 
of tyranny; but they seem to have been especially wel- 
comed because of their opportunities for rhetorical 
fervors. 

In nearly all the plays the main interest is not in plot, 
as in the eighteenth century, and not primarily in story, 
as in the Elizabethan period, but in the delineation of 
individual passion. "Lear," "Othello," "Hamlet," 
and "Macbeth" are the models; but the passions are 
more distempered, more isolated, more abstracted from 
reason or sense than in Shakespeare. As in the Restora- 
tion and the eighteenth century, the influence of Shake- 
speare and the Elizabethans is most unmistakable in 
the prominence given to insanity and villany. But this 
prominence is also a natural result of the romanticists' 
prepossession with passion. In tragedy, they felt that 



ROMANTICISM IN TRAGEDY 359 

some passions must be very evil and some ruinous ; hence 
they devoted themselves to a study of malice and madness. 
Their villains are more vigorous than those of the eigh- 
teenth century, but they, too, imitate lago ; and the mad 
scenes always recall either Lear or Ophelia. The ro- 
manticists can realize passion for the moment, or display 
its variable moods; but they rarely succeed in making 
its extended portrayal convincing. They clung to the 
idea that the only way to depict passion was to eliminate 
all else. Even in the great writers passion absorbs the 
interest ; in the minor plays it tears itself to tatters. Tra- 
gedy after tragedy represents passions, not conflicting 
but alternating, until one or the other turns to madness. 
As Lewis's prologue declared, Romance "raves away 
the hours." The conception of tragedy seems to be 
the burning up of the soul in passion, and the poets' 
main concern to describe the conflagration. The ro- 
manticists needed Lyttleton's advice, to read Shake- 
speare, but to study Racine. 

The conception of tragedy that requires the expression 
of passion working in individual men, and seeks in his- 
tory or legend for examples of isolated effects of the great 
emotions, clearly involves something different from a 
veracious representation of life as we all see it, and some- 
thing more than the confusion of passions run wild. Ac- 
cording to contemporary philosophical criticism, as that 
of Schiller and Schelling, or that of Coleridge and Shel- 
ley, tragedy should take part in the search for universal 
truth ; not universal in the eighteenth-century conception 



360 TRAGEDY 

of typical characters and aphoristic generaHzations, but 
universal in the sense that, in the words of Carlyle, it 
seeks the " interpretation of the divine idea in the vi^orld." 
Tragedy should investigate, as Lamb declared, "the 
grounds of the passion, its correspondence to a great 
and heroic nature," and should also seek to find in the 
riots of evil or the storms of passion symptoms of the 
struggle of Nature to rid itself of disease and fever, the 
presage of a higher unity for both man and the universe. 
Something of this is discernible in "Remorse" or else- 
where; there is a passionate demand for ethical realities 
in "Cain"; but the only positive presentation of an 
idealistic theory of tragedy is "The Cenci." 

Though tragedy thus reflects the changes working in 
the ideas and forms of literature, these changes are, of 
course, more distinctly indicated elsewhere. If we had 
no knowledge of other literature, and only tragedy to 
judge from, we could not clearly discern the far-reaching 
changes wrought by the romantic revival. Tragedy from 
1800 to 1830 could be described as marking a return to 
the Elizabethans and Shakespeare, an absorption in the 
depiction of passion, a revival of poetic imagination in 
expression, an appeal to terror rather than to pity, and 
to the strange and mysterious rather than the reasonable ; 
but it could not be said that the summation of these 
changes resulted in an extensive or enduring develop- 
ment. 

It is not easy to find a stopping-place for a history of 
English tragedy. In the case of the acted drama the close 



ROMANTICISM IN TRAGEDY 361 

of Macready's management offers a definite end, for the 
ensuing twenty-five years are nearly a blank as far as 
acted tragedy is concerned. In the case of the unacted 
drama, however, there is no point of marked change. 
The deaths of Scott and Goethe mark a stage in Euro- 
pean literature; and the Victorian era introduces new 
poets and novelists, new social and political conditions, 
and a new foreign influence in the French romanticists. 
But the closet dramas after 1830 are in many w^ays closely 
related to those of the generation before. Closet tragedy 
in the plays of Browning, Sir Henry Taylor, Matthew 
Arnold, Swinburne, and others, was largely the outcome of 
the theatrical and literary conditions which we have been 
tracing. Separated from the theatre, it offers, one must 
fear, little that is vital in the development of the drama, 
however impressive it may be as poetry. The appear- 
ance of new semi-dramatic species was a natural accom- 
paniment of the continued departure of drama from 
the stage. Miss Mitford and Bulwer-Lytton had written 
*' dramatic scenes." Later Landor's genius found its 
truest opportunity not in poetic plays, but in prose im- 
aginary conversations, at their best splendidly dramatic. 
Browning turned from the theatre to dramatic lyrics, 
romances, and monologues. In fact, in the work of all 
the romantic dramatists, including Browning and Swin- 
burne, dramatic power reveals itself in scenes and pas- 
sages rather than in whole plays. Tragedy as a literary 
form, it may be repeated, is dependent for its life upon 
the theatre. Removed from the theatre, its integrity is 



362 TRAGEDY 

gone, it develops strange and varied forms. Instead of 
tragedy, we have " My Last Duchess," " The Ring and 
the Book," and the Mary Stuart trilogy. 

It is this separation from the theatre that seems to have 
been the main cause for the failure of the romantic move- 
ment in tragedy. We may, to be sure, find other causes 
in plenty. The genius of its great poets was lyrical rather 
than dramatic. Lyrical and narrative poetry and, above 
all, the novel absorbed both public interest and imagina- 
tive genius. Again, there was no free play for a revolution 
in tragedy, because there had been no tyranny. Classi- 
cism had never dominated the drama as in other Euro- 
pean nations. In English tragedy of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, blank verse, however tainted by affectation, had kept 
the Elizabethan fondness for figure; structure, though 
following after French models, had maintained the tra- 
ditions of English freedom; the subjects had kept open 
a wide range and had not neglected the medieval field; 
and sentiment, if not passion, had reigned. While the 
German and French romanticists found in Shakespeare 
an incentive to something new, the English romanticists 
could only elevate to omnipotence one who had long been 
the idol of the theatres. He was for them no innovator, 
but rather the unrecognized tyrant who held them back 
from real innovation. As Beddoes recognized in theory 
though not in practice, "the man who is to awaken the 
drama must be a bold tramping fellow, — no reviver, 
even however good." 

But if we still ask why Coleridge or Beddoes should 



THE DEFEAT OF POETICAL DRAMA 363 

not have written tragedy as well as Schiller or Victor 
Hugo, why the tragedy of passion, revolt, and idealism, 
applied to history or legend, did not flourish in the time 
of the French Revolution and Napoleon, of Kemble and 
Kean, of Byron and Browning, the best answer must be 
found in the fact that theatrical conditions offered no 
encouragement to tragic drama, but almost forbade a 
serious attempt to learn the ways of the theatre or to deal 
in its debased wares. 

If theatrical conditions had been favorable, if the union 
of Macready and Browning could have continued, one 
fancies that the romantic drama might yet have suc- 
ceeded. The chronicle of English tragedy finds its climax 
in the first act, with Shakespeare as its protagonist ; hence- 
forth, directed by his ghost, its action goes haltingly, 
vainly awaiting another climax and another protagonist. 
In Browning, it was, perhaps, nearer than ever before to 
finding both. Since the Restoration, no poet had come 
to the theatre so gifted with dramatic genius, no poet 
so concerned with the study of the vicissitudes of human 
motive, so alive to the dramatic values of crucial mo- 
ments, so curious as to the meaning of passion and pain, 
suffering and evil, in the drama of life. " Strafford " and 
" A Blot on the 'Scutcheon " have the weaknesses of youth 
and experiment, but they are the plays of a pioneer who 
is not content with returning to the Elizabethans or the 
Greeks, but is seeking to convey through his stories and 
persons the truth that is in him. The study of Strafford 
is almost the first independent and acute study of an 



364 TRAGEDY 

Englishman of historj^ in all the historical tragedies since 
"Henry V"; "A Blot on the 'Scutcheon" one of the 
few plays to realize individual passions since Otway. 
And the dramatic defects — the failure to meet his audi- 
ence half-way, the awkwardness and garrulity of expres- 
sion, the lack of repression in form, while defects that 
continue in Browning's later poetry — are the very 
faults for which a severe apprenticeship to the theatre 
might have been the best discipline. An apprenticeship 
such as Shakespeare served might have turned Brown- 
ing's monologues and lyrics into dramas ; but the age was 
incapable of furnishing such a training, and the fiasco 
with Macready was the end of the period and the defeat 
of the poetical drama. 

What comes after in the nineteenth century may best be 
left to the future historian, who will be able to interpret 
its plays in the light of a succeeding development. The 
plays of Tennyson, reverting again to Shakespeare, and 
the poems of Swinburne may, after all, be the forerunners 
of a new revival of poetical tragedy. Or the great de- 
velopment in technic that has proceeded, first under the 
guidance of the French dramatists, and then of Ibsen, 
and the serious essays of dramatists of the passing gen- 
eration may be the pioneers of a national drama of first- 
rate importance in the generation to come. Certainly 
Ibsen, with his revolution in both the content and the 
form of the tragic drama, has been the great force in later 
nineteenth century tragedy. His work as it affects Eng- 
land and America, however neglected, postponed, or 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 365 

modified, must be the text of a succeeding chapter on 
English tragedy, which cannot yet be written. 

NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Genest's Account of the English Stage stops at 1830. A continuation 
of this work down to the present time is much to be desired. There is 
no thorough history or bibHography of the drama of this period. In 
addition to the histories of the theatre already mentioned, W. C. Oulton's 
History of the Theatres of London, 1795-1817, may be consulted. Me- 
moirs of the Kembles are useful for this period, and also Macready's 
Reminiscences, ed. Sir F. Pollock (1875), Moore's Life of Sheridan 
(1825), Molloy's Life of Edmund Kean (1888), WilHam Archer's ad- 
mirable life of Macready (Eminent Actors Series), are all valuable. 
Random Recollections by Colman the younger, and memoirs of Kelly, 
O'Keefe, and Reynolds supply information in regard to the theatre and 
illegitimate drama. John Cumberland's collections, British Theatre (41 
vols., 1829) and the Minor Theatre (15 vols.), are printed from acting 
copies, and the second comprises many illegitimate plays. 

Dramatic criticism of the period includes Coleridge (see criticism of 
Maturin's Bertram in Biographia Liter aria), Hazlitt, A View of the 
English Stage (1818); Leigh Hunt, Critical Essays on the Performers of 
the London Theatres (1807) (selections from same, ed. W. Archer and 
R. W. Lowe, 1894) ; Lamb (see Lamb's Dramatic Essays, ed. Brander 
Matthews, 1893). See, also, R. H. Home's New Spirit of the Age 
(1844), containing criticism of Knowles, Macready, Bulwer-Lytton, and 
Browning. 

The dramatic work of the chief poets has been studied in connection 
with their other poetry by many editors and critics, but rarely in its rela- 
tion to the drama of the period. Professor Beers's two volumes, English 
Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century (1899), and English Roman- 
ticism in the Nineteenth Century (1901), deal with the German influ- 
ence; C. H. Herford has an excellent though brief account of the drama 
of the period in his Age of Wordsworth; Watson Nicholson's The 
Struggle for a Free Stage in London (1906) is full and valuable. 
Ernest Bates's monograph on" The Cenci (1908) discusses that tragedy 
and its relations to Contemporary drama. 




CHAPTER XI 

CONCLUSION 

HE questions with which the first chapter 
began should now have found their answers. 
The plays considered in our historical sketch 
have many common characteristics, they 
do separate themselves from other plays of their periods, 
they are connected from one period to another in a con- 
tinuous development. English tragedies constitute a 
dramatic type, a literary form. This type has, to be sure, 
permitted many variations, — revenge tragedy, chronicle 
play, tragicomedy, domestic tragedy, sentimental tragedy, 
Wroic play, or the closet tragedy of the romanticists — 
jbut every one of these species has had its connections 
j^ith others, and in every period the tragedies of varying 
Ikinds have been related not only to one another but to 
/those that have gone before. With changing theatrical 
/ conditions, with new literary impulses, with new views 
j of the old traditions, with new" influences from Spain or 
France or Germany, the type has taken new characteris- 
tics or made new alliances, but has never lost its integ- 
rity. At any time during the three centuries it would 
have been possible to frame a definition of tragedy that 
would include over nine tenths of the tragedies of the 
period, and the other tenth would offer only definable 



THE BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY 367 

variations. However strong the foreign influences, tra- 
gedy has maintained the national tradition; however 
great the innovations, it has never broken with the past. 
From Marlowe to Shelley there has been an unbroken 
continuity in themes, stories, types of persons, nature of 
emotional appeal, structure, and even in the blank verse. 
So marked is the integrity and continuity of the type 
that tragedy lends itself, better perhaps than most other 
forms, to the biological analogy. The processes which 
we have been tracing are evolutionary. Whether we con- 
sider the main type or its varying forms, w^e are reminded 
constantly of the laws governing the origin and develop- 
ment of natural species. The history of the Elizabethan 
drama in particular affords an example of the origin, 
development, culmination, and degeneration of a literary 
species, which might be analyzed closely as Brunetiere 
has analyzed French tragedy of the seventeenth century. 
Created from a cross-fertilization of Seneca on the medi- 
eval drama, it appears in dubious forms of morality and 
chronicle, springs into full integrity in Marlowe, reaches 
its culmination in Shakespeare, and degenerates under 
the changed environment of the social and theatrical 
conditions that followed the death of Elizabeth. But the 
analogy is not less applicable to the whole history of 
tragedy. The slow development of variations and new 
species under changing environment is found in every 
period, as in the formation and growth of the revenge 
play or in the development of the sentimental tragedy 
of the eighteenth century. The quick formation of species 



368 TRAGEDY 

by mutation also has its parallels, as in the sudden ap- 
pearance of Marlowe or of the heroic tragedy bred from 
the Beaumont-Fletcher play and French romance. In 
the persistence of the stage villain through all forms 
and periods, we might even discover one of Mendel's 
unit characters. The reversion to an earlier form appears 
in the return of Lee or of the Romanticists to the Eliz- 
abethans. And the tendency of individual plays to 
regress to the main type has been a constant and on the 
whole perhaps the most potent force of the development. 
We may find the nature of the literary species deter- 
mined by constant principles corresponding to environ- 
ment and heredity in the evolution of natural species. 
Environment as a factor in literature has long: been re- 
cognized by criticism, and has been apparent in every 
play that we have examined. Each period has been dis- 
tinguished by theatrical, social, and literary conditions 
peculiar to itself and constituting the change-producing 
environment of the drama. Tragedy has at every stage 
responded to these changing conditions. And the law of 
heredity is also paralleled. No play has been without its 
inheritance. The most original, as Shakespeare's "Ham- 
let," Otway's "Orphan," Lillo's "Barnwell," and Shel- 
ley's "Cenci," have shown their indebtedness no less 
clearly, if less slavishly, than the more commonplace 
individuals. The classical tradition transformed the Eng- 
lish breed as the Arabian stock has the racing-horse; 
the French influence changed the very anatomy of the 
species. Our study must surely have called attention to 



THE BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY 369 

the extraordinary force that imitation has exercised in 
the creation of tragedy. It seems, indeed, the generating 
power. Men are forever imitating, but they cannot imitate 
without change. In these changes, the variations due to 
environment — personal, theatrical, literary, social — 
arise the individual peculiarities, the beginnings of new 
species, the element of growth. The great mass of trage- 
dies, however, differentiate themselves only feebly or 
slightly from the type. They are imitations that preserve 
all the essential characteristics of their originals. Some 
ideas, some plays, some traditions, have an astonishing 
fecundity; other stocks, procreative for a while, soon 
turn barren. But, destroy the faculty of imitation, and the 
generation of literary forms would seem wellnigh im- 
possible. 

Thus far, perhaps, the biological analogy may be 
pressed, if we remember that it is only an analogy. The 
evolution of a wagon or a battleship might offer an 
equally suggestive and an equally unsafe comparison. No 
one should be deceived by the analogy into thinking that 
what we call environment and heredity in literary species 
correspond in fact with their namesakes in the physical 
world. One play does not create another. It, along with 
countless other things, suggests ideas and impressions 
which are made into a play by the author. Each tragedy 
is the child of a mind, whose creative processes have little 
real resemblance to physical generation. To call the 
influence of "Hamlet" heredity, and the influence of 
the author's newspaper reading, or of his family, or his 



370 TRAGEDY 

political beliefs, environment, is merely to assign arbitrary 
names. Again, art, unlike nature, is careless of the type 
and careful of the individual. A single play may live 
longer and have greater generating power than a whole 
species. " Othello " during the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries has, perhaps, had more influence upon English 
tragedy than all non-Shakespearean tragedies together. 
Sophocles is still germinating. It is as if we now had the 
venerable chief of the mastodons, surviving many of the 
species he had originated, and still creating his offspring 
to confuse the evolutions of the many other species he 
had already aided in forming. In literature we are at- 
tempting to trace the development of species, of which 
individuals live forever; to discriminate the agents in a 
complex creative process which we do not at all under- 
stand ; to call one play the child of another when it is 
more truly the kaleidoscopic aggregate of much reading, 
much observation, much experience shaken into a new 
form by the author's creative imagination. 

Literary criticism may borrow from the natural sciences 
the evolutionary conception and some of its accompani- 
ments; in particular, the demarcation of literary forms 
by the persistence of certain characteristics through 
changing conditions of nation or period, and the recog- 
nition of imitation as an important element in the creative 
process. It would seem, however, that further progress 
in the classification and explanation of literary phenomena 
is not to be gained by searching for additional analogies, 
but in the study and analysis of the phenomena them- 



THE TWO TRADITIONS 371 

selves in the effort to discover the principles and laws 
of the mental processes peculiar to literature. 

We may put the case, then, without further reliance on 
the evolution of physical species. For three hundred 
years Englishmen have been writing tragedies, all much 
alike, all related in origin, nature, and purpose. In our 
study of their relationships, the influences governing their 
creation have been grouped in two main classes: first, 
that of the theatre itself, and second, that which has been 
called the literary tradition. In the theatre has been in- 
cluded the influence of actors and audience and all per- 
taining to the theatrical presentation. Changes in the 
mere stage and its appurtenances have been factors 
determining the very nature of tragedy. The scenery 
and women actors of the Restoration compelled important 
modifications in the drama ; the large theatres of Kemble's 
day drove tragedy from the stage and encouraged a pan- 
tomime hybrid. The influence of theatrical fashions and 
traditions, always in part changing and transitory, has 
been felt in every variation, advance, or retrogression of 
the acted drama. Yet it is the influence of the theatre 
that has maintained the integrity of form and has thus 
been the main force in preserving the species. The literary 
tradition, even more complex in its elements than that of 
the theatre, altering and cumulative, composed of classi- 
cal or French as well as English masterpieces, drawn 
from the novel or other forms as well as the drama, af- 
fected by all social movements, passing through such 
transformations as those of the classical and the romantic 



372 TRAGEDY 

periods, has nevertheless, on the whole, conserved the 
form and content of tragedy. During the periods that 
we have examined, blank verse, illustrious persons, the 
pomp of courts, the great passions of revenge, ambition, 
jealousy, lust, love, and hate, hideous crimes, and the con- 
flict of potent wills have been the usual accompaniments 
of the actions of suffering and ruin. There has been only 
occasional departure from the Shakespearean conception 
of tragedy as representation of great personalities engaged 
in disastrous conflict. Shakespeare, in fact, at least since 
Dryden's "All for Love," has been a constant and often 
the dominating element in this complex and variable 
literary tradition. The two classes of influence, theatrical 
and literary, have thus proved both variable and conserv- 
ing. The theatre, while crying for novelty, holds tena- 
ciously to its traditions. Literature, while enforcing 
rules, precedents, prejudices, while clinging to its models 
and demanding imitation, yet incites to rivalry and origi- 
nality, to new endeavor, variation, and excellence. 

These two main classes of influence have rarely if ever 
run parallel. At times the theatre has attracted literature, 
as in the Elizabethan era, at times it has repelled literature, 
as in the early nineteenth century. Usually, what the 
stage of the day desires and what the literature of the past 
encourages have been quite different and often irrecon- 
cilable. In our study we have consequently had to keep 
in mind not only two main lines of influence, but two 
points of view and two standards of judgment. It is the 
purpose of dramatic art to bring about their reconciliation, 



THE TWO TRADITIONS 373 

to harmonize the technic of the theatre, the necessities 
of the drama, and the standards of Hterary excellence. 
Our history records no attainment of such an ideal; 
rather the two antinomies seem farther from final unity 
in the time of Byron than in that of Shakespeare. Yet, 
through the discarding of temporary fashions, the grow- 
ing knowledge of structure, and the multiplication of 
theatrical means, the material and experience necessary 
for further progress have at least been accumulating. 
Perhaps a survey of the drama of the last century on the 
continent would result in a more sanguine view of the 
development of the principles of dramatic art freed from 
the temporalities of theatrical fashion. There is proba- 
bility in Professor Brander Matthews's suggestion that in 
our growing cosmopolitanism national divergencies in 
content will exist with a growing agreement in form. We 
may hope that this will be merely an agreement in mak- 
ing quick trial of new ideas, from whatever theatre de- 
rived, and that the principles of art established will not, 
as so often in the past, prove pedantic and hampering. 
This much seems fairly certain, — literary genius and 
theatrical experience must unite in order to produce 
great tragedy. From the theatre the writer must learn 
dramatic art, the first rule of which is to win his audience ; 
from literature he must learn the elements that will give 
his work lasting value. Only after an experience with 
the theatre can he venture on innovations likely to be 
permanent. Only if he have literary genius will he depart 
in triumph from literary traditions. The double mastery 



374 TRAGEDY 

comes to one only rarely, and then only after a double 
service. 

The relationships of tragedy, however, are not confined 
to the theatre or to literature. That tragedy, Jike other 
forms of literature, is an imitation of life, is a platitude 
whose meaning sometimes fails to impress us. But its 
truth has a witness in every writer of tragedy. However 
insignificant or thoughtless, he has been trying to put 
into his play something of life as he knows it, trying to 
find some relationships in the world of fact that will carry 
meaning and interest to his fellows. Whether he has been 
writing mainly to meet the desires of actors and audience, 
or has been voyaging alone toward some discovery of 
beauty and grandeur of human passion, whether he has 
been building his house of intrigue according to well- 
conned rules of dramatic structure, or has been copying 
some tangle of fact, he has been studying the ways and 
means of human actions. Trivially or greatly, as the case 
may be, he has been seeking to interpret life. Classicist, 
romanticist, and realist have been by different processes 
seeking the same end, the discovery of meaning in the 
facts of existence. They have all viewed the Art that 
they have so differently formulated, as a means of ap- 
proach to Nature, the deity whom they all profess. Nei- 
ther high seriousness, nor sublime theme, nor a complete 
philosophy is a necessary accompaniment of Matthew 
Arnold's definition. Whether the poet write of *'the 
tangles of Neaera's hair" or of that disobedience that 
first "brought death into the world," he is attempting 



A CRITICISM OF LIFE 375 

a criticism of life. This definition does not state the pri- 
mary aim of hterature, for it must first of all interest us, 
or its sole function, for it seeks beauty as well as truth 
and cannot always unite them; but it does indicate the 
most permanent and vitalizing element in the creation 
of literature, the most organic relationship that connects 
its many manifestations. 
j( The greatness of tragedy depends upon its allegiance to 
tnis meaning of literature. The dramatic form gives 
opportunity for a close approach to the semblance of 
actuality. The very subjects of tragedy, suffering and 
disaster, discourage the seeking of mere amusement or a 
contentment with mere beauty of expression. They re- 
quire, if not high seriousness or a teleology, at least a 
concern with the most interesting, inescapable, and 
dreadful of human facts. This baleful portion of human 
existence is the field of tragedy's research, where it may 
find grandeur and violence, malevolence and magnanim- 
ity, optimism or pessimism, harmony or anarchy, but 
where it can only with difficulty escape a serious attempt 
at the study of character and deed. No other literary 
form has so nobly responded to this great mission as 
that adopted by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Calderon, 
Corneille, and Ibsen. It has constrained drama and 
literature to their duty of research, interpretation, dis- 
covery in the almost impenetrable maze of human fact, 
by the very nature of its chosen field, by the preeminence 
of its great examples, and even by the continued endeavor 
of its humblest servants. As one reads through these 



376 TRAGEDY 

forgotten tragedies,, as when one scans closely any large 
field of human effort, the main impression is one of futil- 
ity, i Beauty is not attained, life is _not revealed, every- 
thing is imitative, feeble, and absurd. \ Yet, even among 
those hundreds of eighteenth century tragedies, with 
their rhyming tags that neatly sum up their authors' 
generalizations on life, one may find reason for sympathy 
and interest. They record what had meaning for their 
day, the heroisms, sentiments, and morals that somehow 
stirred men's hearts and elevated their resolves. They 
represent some degree of temporary success in giving 
relations and significance to their world. The lastingly 
significant representation of life is found not in the many 
but in the few, but the mediocrities and the failures con- 
tinue the effort and maintain the form that make possible 
the few masterpieces. The very greatest set no impas- 
sable bound, for the ever- widening expanse of tragic 
fact continually invites new explorers. Progress can 
come not by resting admiringly on the greatness of the 
past, but only through a free opportunity for new pioneers 
and discoverers. Were the achievement of English tragedy 
far less than it has been, the very expenditure of effort 
should give it some interest for study. Its history, how- 
ever, includes in Shakespeare's tragedies a few of the 
unapproached achievements of the human mind, many 
other plays that for a while greatly interested and per- 
suaded men, not a few that still have searching mean- 
ing for us, and hundreds more that have maintained an 
unselfish, a social, a moral inquiry into life, and that. 



A CRITICISM OF LIFE 377 

while perishing themselves, have aided others to live. In 
such a history, even he who runs may read a record of 
human endeavor not alien to his interest. 
< Tragedy takes an abiding place among the great 
courses of continuous human activity dedicated to an 
inquiry into the meanings of lifeT] Its imaginative and 
intellectual study of suffering and ruin must continue, 
however its form may alter, if the theatre is to be a social 
force of importance, if literature is to offer an intelligent, 
serious, and comprehensive view of life, if the two are to 
unite in something better than a trivial and selfish enter- 
tainment. Its methods may not commend themselves in 
an age of physical and mechanical sciences, its aim may 
not commend itself at a time when splendid discoveries 
in the physical world blur the importance of an inter- 
pretation of moral and social relations. But tragedy has 
survived many ages and creeds, and seems likely to sur- 
vive as long as men try to understand other men, to sym- 
pathize with their troubles, and to relate these somehow 
to their own beliefs and ideals. In the future as in the 
past, when a nation or community is at a period of cul- 
minating advance, when society is most mindful of its 
greatness and its obligations, tragedy should find its most 
helpful encouragement and its greatest opportunity. 



INDEX 

The Index contains the titles of works, the names of authors, and the names 
of a few actors referred to in the text or footnotes. The Bibhographical Notes 
are not indexed. Alterations of plays are not indexed separately unless they 
have separate titles. References of importance are indicated by heavy-faced 
figures. 



Abraham, 56. 

Absalon, 39. 

Addison, Joseph, 250, 289-291, 302, 

307. 
Adriana, 127. 
^schylus, 13, 354. 

Agamemnon (by Thomson), 299, 300. 
Agamem,non and Ulysses, 70 n. 
Ajax and Ulysses, 70 n. 
Ajax Flagellifer, 58. 
Alcazar, The Battle of, 108, 111, 115, 

221. 
Alcibiades, 269. 
Alexander, W., 142. 
Alfred the Great, 346. 
Alleyn, Edward, 98. 
All for Love, 25. 260, 261, 263, 264, 

277. 282, 293. 372. 
All 'a Lost by Lust, 218. 
Almida, 295 n. 
Alphonsus of Aragon, 107. 
Alzira, 295 n., 304. 
Alzum^a, 295 n. 

Ambitious Stepmother, The, 283. 
Amboyna, 259. 
Amelia, 321. 
Andrews, P. M., 332. 
Andromaque, 290. 
Antigone, 195. 
Antonio, 343. 
Antony and Cleopatra, 175-177, 178, 

184, 185. 189. 195. 261. 293. 297 n. 
Antonio and Mellida (see Antonio's 

Revenge), 139, 146. 



Antonio's Revenge, 146. 147-149. 

Apology for Poetry, 44. 72. 

Appius and Virginia, 51, 62 n., 63, 64, 

66, 69. 71. 
Archer, Wm., 203 n., 335 n. 
Archipropheta, 39- 
Arden of Feversham, 109, 110, 113, 

140; (adaptation by Lillo), 315, 316. 
Argalus and Parthenia, 234. 
Ariodante and Genevra, 70 n. 
Aristotle, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 25, 

43, 44. 165. 248. 
Arnold, Matthew, 361, 374. 
Ars Poetica, 34, 43. 
Ascham, Roger, 32, 39. 
Asinari, Frederigo, 56. 
Atheist's Tragedy, The, 151, 153, 154, 

201, 202. 
Athelwold, 304. 
Athenian Captive, The, 346. 
Auchindrane, 349 n., 350. 
Aureng Zebe, 260, 282, 297 n. 

Bacon, Lord, 79. 

Baillie, Joanna, 339-341, 343, 357. 

Bale, John, 39. 40, 41. 

Banks, John, 273,' 277, 282, 308 n. 

Baptistes, 37. 

Barbarossa, 308 n. 

Barnavelt, Tragedy of Sir John van 

Olden, 214. 
Bartholomew Fair, 144. 
Bashful Lover, The, 222. 
Basil, 339. 



380 



INDEX 



Battle of Hexham, The, 332, 333. 
Beaumont and Fletcher (see, also, 

Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, 

John), 136, 179, 197, 199, 202, 303- 

311, 229, 232, 238, 240, 249, 251, 

255, 257, 262, 265, 270, 277, 282, 

322, 346, 368. 
Beaumont, Francis (see Beaumont 

and Fletcher), 198, 204, 211. 
Beddoes, T. L., 348, 356, 357, 362. 
Behn, Mrs. Afra, 266, 274. 
Believe as You List, 221, 224. 
Belief orest, 104. 
Berenice, 269. 
Bertram, 344, 357. 
Betterton, T., 245, 252, 266. 
Beza, T. de, 56. 
Blacksmith's Daughter, The, 71. 
Bloody Brother, The, or Rollo, Duke of 

Normandy, 314-316, 252, 282. 
Blot on the 'Scutcheon, The, 346, 363, 

364. 
Boaden, J., 3^2. 
Boccaccio, 32, 55, 56, 239. 
Bondmun, The, 322 n. 
Bonduca, 313, 252, 282, 322 n. 
Borderers, The, 341. 
Bothwell, 14. 
Braganza, 322. 
Brandl, Alois, 55 n. 
Bridal, The, 346. 
Bride's Tragedy, The, 348. 
Broken Heart, The, 227, 338. 
Brooke, Arthur, 127, 129, 133. 
Brooke, H., 295. 
Brothers, The, 298. 
Brown, Charles, 349. 
Brovra, John, 306, 308 n. 
Browning, Robert, 14, 129, 182, 222, 

346, 354, 355, 361, 363, 364. 
Brunetifere, Ferdinand, 6, 367. 
Brutus, 295 n.; (by John Howard 

Payne), 344. 
Brutus of Alba, 246. 
Buchanan, George, 37, 56. 
Bulwer-Lytton, 345, 346, 361. 
Burgoyne, Gen., 318 n. 



Burning of Sodom, The, 40. 

Burns, Robert, 324. 

Busiris, 297 n., 298. 

Bussy D'Ambois, The Death of, 144, 

252; The Revenge of, 144. 
Byron, Lord, 182, 338, 345, 347, 350- 

353, 354, 356-358, 363, 373. 
Byron, The Conspiracy and Tragedy 

of, 144. 

Ccelia, or the Perjured Lover, 318. 

Caesar arid Pompey, 70 n. 

Ccesar Borgia, 267. 

Cain, 339, 352, 354, 356, 360. 

Caius Gracchus, 344. 

Caius Marius, History and Fall of, 

269. 292. 
Calderon, 13, 354, 375. 
Caleb Williams, 333. 
Caligula, 266. 
Calprenfede, 247. 
Cambyses, 52, 62. 66, 67, 69. 74, 172, 

237. 
Campbell, Thomas, 341. 
Canfield, Dorothea, 290 n. 
Capell. Edward, 293. 
Caractacus, 297. 
Cardenio, 211. 
Cardinal, The, 233, 252. 
Careless Husband, The, 317. 
Carey, H., 314 n. 
Carlell, L., 235. 
Carlyle, T., 360. 
Carmelite, The, 323. 
Castle of Otranto, The, 322, 330. 
Castle Spectre, The, 323, 329. 
Catiline, 141-144, 297 n. 
Catilin's Conspiracy, 71. 
Cato, 390, 391, 297 n. 
Cenci, The, 353, 354, 356, 361, 368. 
Centlivre, Mrs., 266. 
Cervantes, 212. 
Chambers, E. K., 38. 
Changeling, The, 319. 
Chapman, George, 6, 137, 139, 144- 

146, 184, 185, 187, 198, 202, 214, 

252. 



INDEX 



381 



Chaucer, Geoffrey, 31, 32, 
Cheke, Sir John, 32. 
Chettle, Henry, 139, 151, 153, 153, 
156. 

Christian Hero, The, 315. 

Christ opherson, J., 39. 

Christus Redivivus, 39. 

Christus Triumphans, 39. 

Chrononhotonthologos, 314 n. 

Churchill, George B., 58 n. 

Cibber, CoUey, 292, 307, 317. 

Cicero, 142, 

Cid, The, 247. 

Cinthio, Giraldi, 56, 86. 

City Madam, The, 220, 322 n. 

City of the Plague, The, 347. 

Clarissa Harlowe, 275, 321. 

Cleomenes, 262, 273. 

Cleopatra Captive, 38. 

Cloridon and Radimanta, 70 n. 

Coleridge, S. T., 213 n., 337, 338, 341, 

342, 343, 357, 359, 362. 
Collier, Jeremy, 281, 316. 
Colman, George, 322 n. 
Colman, George (the younger), 333- 

334, 337. 
Complaint of Buckingham, The, 52. 
Condemnation of John Huss, The, 40. 
Confidant, The, 343. 
Congreve, Wm., 3, 273, 375. 277, 282. 
Conquest of Granada, 259, 282. 
Conscious Lovers, The, 317. 
Constantine, 267. 
Coriolanus, 175, 177, 178, 265, 292; 

(by Thonason), 299, 301 302. 
Corneille, Pierre, 245, 248, 294, 300, 

316, 375. 
Corneille, Thomas, 298. 
Cornelia (translation of Garnier's), 

100 n. 
Countess of Salisbury, The, 308 n. 
Count Julian, 348, 349. 
Count of Narbonne, The (adaptation 

of Castle of Otranto), 322. 
Crabbe, George, 324, 343. 
Cradock, J., 295 n. 
Creizenach, W.. 56. 69. 



Critic, The, 314 n. 

Crowne, John, 250, 253, 266, 269. 

Cruelty of a Stepmother, The, 71. 
Cumberland, Richard, 285, 306, 319, 

320, 323, 344. 
Cupid's Revenge, 203. 
Curfew, The, 335, 343. 
Cushman, Miss Charlotte, 344. 
Cymbeline, 179, 265, 292, 297 n. 
Cyrus, 295 n., 296. 
Cyrus the Great, or the Tragedy of 

Love, 273. 

Dalida, La, see Roxana. 

Damon and Pythias, 51, 58, 62, 63. 

Daniel, Samuel, 142. 

Dante, 31. 

Davenant. Sir Wm., 235, 244, 251, 

252, 277. 292. 
Davenport, R., 235. 
David and Bethsabe, 110, 111. 
Death's Jest Book, 348. 
De Casibus Illustrium Virorum et 

Feminarum, 32. 
Defoe, Daniel, 317, 
Deformed Transformed, The, 357. 
Dekker, Thomas, 198, 224, 227, 240. 
Delivery of Susannah, The, 40. 
De Montfort, 339. 340. 343. 
Dennis. John. 250, 290, 301. 
Deserted Daughter, The, 320. 
Dibdin, T., 332, 338. 
Dickens, Charles, 312. 
Dictys Cretensis, 65. 
Diderot, D., 317, 318. 
Dido (by Dolce), 56; (by Gager), 59; 

(by Ritwyse),39; (by unknown), 58. 
Dido, Tragedy of (by Marlowe and 

Nash), 89. 
Distressed Mother, The, 290, 291, 294. 
Divine Comedy, The, 31. 
Dolce, Lodovico. 54, 56. 
Dolis House, The, 10. 
Don Carlos, 269. 
Don Juan, 354. 
Donne, John, 137, 229, 
Don Quixote, 333. 



382 



INDEX 



Don Sebastian, 262, 263, 278, 335. 

Doom of Devorgoil, The, 349. 

Dorval, or the Test of Virtue (trans- 
lated from Le Fils Naturel), 318 n. 

Double Marriage, The, 214. 

Douglas, 305. 

Downfall and Death of Robert, Earl 
of Huntington, The, 139. 

Downman, H., 344. 

Drayton, M., 99. 

Dryden, John. 145, 208, 248-251, 
253, 259-263, 264, 266, 271-274, 
277. 278, 281, 282, 293, 328, 331, 
335, 372. 

Duchess de la Valiere, 346. 

Duchess of Malfi, The, 199, 200, 202. 

Duke of Guise, The, 262. 267. 

Duke of Milan, The, 71 n., 222, 224, 
322 n. 

Duke's Mistress, The, 233, 

Duplicity, 319, 320. 

D'Urf^, Honors, 239. 

D'Urfey, T., 266. 

Dyce, Alexander, 215. 

Earl of Essex, The (adaptation of the 
Unhappy Favorite, q. v.), 282. 

Earl of Essex, The (by Jones), 308 n. 

Earl of Warwick, The, 308 n.' 

Eccerinis, 36. 

Edward I, 85, 111. 

Edward II, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 
108, 109. 113, 114. 132. 

Edward III, 108, 109, 112, 114. 

Edward and Eleanor a, 299. 

Edwards, Richard, 58, 62. 

Effigenia (Iphigenia), 71 n., 111. 

Elfrid, 304. 

Elfrida, 297. 

Elmerick, 315. 

Emilia Galotti. 323.' 

English Traveller, The, 141. 

Erasmus, 23. 

Essay of Heroic Plays, 259. 

Essay on Dramatic Poetry, 248, 250. 

Euripides, 32, 33, 37, 54, 72, 111, 297. 

Evadne, 344. 



Everyman, 29. 

Every Man in His Humour, 137. 

Ezechias, 58. 

Fabyan, R., 70. 

Fair Penitent, The, 284-287, 297 n., 

317, 328. 
Fair Quarrel, The, 219. 
Faithful Shepherdess, The, 206. 
Falkland, Lord, 236. 
Fall of Jerusalem, The, 358. 
Fall of Robespierre, The, 341 n. 
Falls of Princes, The, 32. 
False One, The, 214. 
Family Picture, A, 318 n. 
Famous Victories of Henry V, The, 

85. 
Fashionable Lover, The, 320. 
Fatal Curiosity, The, 315, 317. 
Fatal Dowry, The, 224, 285-287, 304, 

344. 
Fatal Extravagance, 318. 
Fatal Falsehood, The, 306, 311. 
Fatal Marriage, The, 274, 278, 282. 
Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam, The, 

303. 304. 
Fate of Capua, The, 274. 
Fate of Villany, The, 309. 
Faulkner, 343. 
Faust, 357. 

Faustus, 89. 90, 92, 98. 
Fazio, 344, 358. 
Fenton, E., 308n. 
F err ex and Porrex. See Gorboduc. 
Field, Nathaniel, 224. 285. 
Fielding, Henry, 129, 273, 314 n. 
Fils Naturel, Le, 318. 
Fleay, F. G., 58 n., 63, 118, 155. 
Fletcher, John (see, also, Beaumont 

and Fletcher), 6, 177. 198. 199, 

211-216, 219-221, 224-226, 229, 

230-232, 234, 238. 246, 255, 256, 

261, 262, 270, 274, 284. 
Foote, S.. 314 n. 
Ford, John. 199. 225, 226-229, 234, 

237. 240. 256. 348. 
Four Plays in One, 203. 



INDEX 



383 



Four Sons of Fabius, 71 n. 

Foxe, John, 39. 

Francklin, T., 308 n. 

FuUer, Harold De W., 114 n., 127n. 

Funeral, The, 291 n. 

Gager, Wm., 59, 111. 

Gamester, The, 318, 321, 324. 

Gammer Gurton's Needle, 39. 

Gardiner, Bishop, 39. 

Garrick, David, 292, 293. 

Gascoigne, George, 54. 

Gay, John, 307, 314 n. 

Genest, J., 335 n. 

George Barnwell, or the London Mer- 
chant, 314-318, 321, 324, 368. 

Ghosts, 18, 195. 

Giflford, Wm., 285. 

Gil Bias, 300. 

Gildon, Charles, 250. 

Giocasta, 54. 

Crismund of Sal erne. See Tancred and 
Gismunda. 

Glapthorne, Henry, 234, 237, 251. 

Glencoe, 346. 

Gloriana, 266. 

Glover R., 306. 

God's Promises, 41. 

Godwin, Wm., 341, 343. 

Goethe, 327, 349 n., 361. 

Goetz von Berlichingen, 349. 

Goffe, Thomas, 236. 

Gorboduc, 22, 26. 38, 40-42, 48, 51, 
52-54, 55 n., 57, 68, 73. 

Gosson, S., 71, 72, 113, 145. 

Grafton, Richard, 70. 

Granville, Earl of, 277. 

Gray, Thomas, 297. 

Grecian Daughter, The, 308 n. 

Greene, Robert, 86, 107, 108, 111, 115, 
130, 133. 

Greville, Fulke, 142. 

Grimald, Nicholas, 39. 

Groto, Luigi, 59, 127. 

Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, The, 
261. 

Guarini, G. B., 206. 



Halidon Hill, 349 n., 350. 

Hall, Bishop, 137. 

Hamblet, Historic of, 104. 

Hamlet (the early), 100 n., W)4, 105. 

147, 148, 15-2, 156. 
Hamlet, 100, 102, 105, 124, 144, 148, 

150, 151, 154, 155-163, 163-165. 

169, 171, 173, 175, 184-186, 195, 

199, 239, 265, 282, 297 n., 358, 

368, 369. 
Hamlet, Revenge of, 150. 
Harding, Samuel, 236. 
Hartson, H., 308 n. , 

Haunted Tower, The, 329 n. 
Hauptmann, G., 12. 
Hazlitt, Wm., 340, 345. 
Hecatommithi, 86. 
Hedda Gabler, 12. 
Hegel, G. W. F., 9. 
Heiress, The, 318 n. 
Heming, Wm., 235. 
Henry IV, 265. 
Henry V (by Aaron Hill), 304; (by 

Shakespeare). 137. 364; (by the 

Earl of Orrery), 253, 257. 
Henry VI, 89, 108, 114, 115, 116, 118, 

297 n. 
Henry VIII, 211, 282. 
Hercules Furens, 119 n. 
Herford, C. H., 352 n. 
Hemani, 346. 
Herodes, 59. 

Heroine of the Cave, The, 310. 
Heywood, Jasper, 42. 
Heywood, Thomas, 139, 140, 141, 

142. 198, 272, 289. 
Hill, Aaron, 295. 298. 303-305, 318. 
Hoffman, 151, 153, 153, 199. 200. 201. 
Holcroft, T., 318 n.; 319. 320. 334. 
Holinshed, R., 70, 109. 123, 171. 173. 

184. 
Home, John, 305, 306. 
Homer, 192. 
Hooker, Richard, 79. 
Hoole, J., 295 n., 296, 306. 
Horace, 294. 
Horestes, 52. 64. 65, 66, 68, 69. 71, 100. 



384 



INDEX 



House of Aspen, The, 349. 
Howard, Sir Robert, 253, 282. 
Hughes, Thomas, 57, 297 n., 308 n. 
Hugo, Victor, 337, 346, 363. 
Hunchback, The, 345. 

Ibsen, Henrik, 6, 11, 313, 364, 375. 

Imaginary Conversation, The, 348. 

Imposter, The, 295 n. 

Inchbald, Mrs.. 319. 

Indian Emperor, The, 353, 259, 282, 

328. 
Indian Queen, The, 253, 282, 305. 
Innocent Adultery, The, 297 n. 
Insolvent, The, 304. 
Ion, 346. 

Iron Chest, The, 332, 333. 
Isabella, 282. 
Island Princess, The, 246. 
Island Queens, The (by Banks), 273. 

Jack Straw, 85. 

James IV, Scottish Historic of, 87. 

Jane Shore, 283, 387-389, 328. 

Jephson, Robert, 322. 

Jephthes (by Buchanan), 37; (by 

Christopherson) , 39, 56. 
Jeronimo, First Part of, 100 n. 
Jew, The (by Cumberland), 320 ; (by 

Unknown), 71. 
Jew of Aragon, The, 345. 
Jew of Malta, The, 89, 90, 93, 95, 98, 

101, 250, 344. 
Jocasta, 51, 54, 55 n. 
Jodelle, E., 38. 
John the Baptist, 41. 
John Woodvil, 343. 
Johnson, Charles, 318. 
Johnson, Samuel, 2, 59, 276, 284, 307, 

308. 
Jones, Henry, 308 n, 
Jonson, Ben, 6, 79. 100, 115, 137, 139, 

141-144, 146, 151, 153, 153, 156, 

184, 185, 203, 215, 217, 233,252. 
Joseph and his Brethren, 339, 347. 
Julia, 322. 
Julian, 347. 



Julius Ccesar, 136, 142, 154, 155, 161, 
163, 173, 175, 177, 186, 282, 292, 
297 n., 304. 

Kean. Edmund, 299, 331, 332, 334. 
349, 363. 

Keats, John, 338, 347, 348, 349, 356. 
357. 

Keller, Wolfgang. 58 n. 

Kemble, Charles, 393. 

Kemble, John P., 291-293, 299, 331, 
333, 340, 343, 349, 363, 371. 

Kemble, Miss Fanny, 308 n. 

Kempe, Wm., 171 n. 

KiUigrew. T., 235. 

King and No King, A, 203-205. 252. 
262, 282, 322 n. 

King John, 114, 116, 117, 136; (by 
Bale), 41. See Troublesome Reign. 

King of Scots, The, 71. 

Kinwelmarsh, F., 54. 

Kirchmayer, 37. 

Knight of Malta, The, 322 n. 

Knight of the Burning Bush, 71 n. 

Knowles. Sheridan, 344-346, 356. 

Kotzebue, A. F. F. von, 321, 323, 
327, 338. 332, 337. 

Kyd, Thomas, his plays, 99-106; their 
influence, 106-110, 112-115. 127, 
128, 138, 142, 144; on revenge plays 
and Shakespeare, 147-155, 156, 
158, 165, 184; on later revenge 
tragedy. 196, 199, 200, 201, 223, 
239; resemblance to in later plays, 
256, 310. 

Lady Jane Grey, 283. 287. 

Lady of Lyons, The, 346. 

Lamb, Charles, 93, 141, 343, 345, 360. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 14, 338, 348. 
349, 361. 

La Place, Pierre de, 297 n. 

Laws of Candy, The, 220. 

Lear, King, 18. 87. 124, 131, 164, 166- 
171, 172. 176, 185, 189, 190, 195, 
202, 226, 282, 292, 312, 358. 

Lee, Harriet, 352. 



INDEX 



385 



Lee, Nathaniel, 246, 250, 251, 253, 
261, 262, 366-269, 275, 277, 278, 
282, 284, 290, 309, 344, 368. 

Legge, Thomas, 59, 60, 118. 

Leir, King, 85, 166. 

Lessing, G. E., 318, 327. 

Lewis, Matthew, 323, 338, 339, 342, 
343, 357, 359. 

Lillo, George, 306, 314-318, 319, 321. 
368. 

Lindsay, Sir David, 41. 

Livy, 71. 

Locrine, 107, 111, 115, 119 n., 152. 

Lope de Vega, 239. 

Lounsbury, Prof. T., 295 n. 

Lovati, Lovato di. 36. 

Jjove for Love, 297 n. 

love's Cruelty, 232, 233. 

Love's Frailties, 318 n. 

Love's Sacrifice, 227. 

Love the Cause and Cure of Grief, 318. 

Love Triumphant, 262. 

Lowell, James Russell, 118. 

Loyal Brother, The, 274. 

Loyal Subject, The, 282. 

Lucius Junius Brutus, 267, 358. 

Lucrece, 142. 

Lydgate, John, 32. 

Lyly, John, 75, 79. 

Lyrical Ballads, The, 339, 355. 

Lyttleton, Lord, 298, 299, 359. 

Macbeth, 3, 87, 119, 124, 131, 171-175, 

184-186. 190, 202, 264, 282, 292, 

297n.. 312, 358. 
Macduff's Cross, 349 n., 350. 
Machiavelli, 95, 165, 190, 236, 267, 

310, 311. 
Macready, Wm., 290, 331, 332, 335, 

345, 346, 360, 363, 364. 
Mahomet, 295 n. 
Maid of Honor, The, 221, 223, 223, 

224, 225. 322 n. 
Maid's Revenge, The, 232. 
Maid's Tragedy, The, 203, 204, 205- 

210, 252, 282, 297 n., 346. 
Malcontent, The, 146, 199. 



Mallet, D., 303. 

Manfred, 353, 357. 

Manley, Mrs., 266. 

Marcella, 322 n. 

Marcellus and Hannibal, 14. 

Mariamne, 308 n. 

Marino Faliero, 345, 351. 

Marlowe, Christopher. 6. 42, 48, 55 n., 
61, 73, 74, 75; his relations to his 
times, 77-84; his tragedies, 88-99; 
his influence on his contemporaries, 
106-113; on Shakespeare, 113-126, 
132, 133, 138; on Chapman, 144- 
146; on Shakespeare's later tra- 
gedy, 154, 155, 165, 166, 169, 172, 
184, 185, 187; on later Elizabethan 
tragedy, 196, 214, 234, 239; his 
plays not acted during Restoration, 
252; survival of his type of villain, 
310, 311; revival of his influence on 
the Romanticists, 347. 353; his im- 
portance in the development of the 
species, 367, 368. 

Marriage Night, The, 236. 

Marston, John, 105, 137. 139, 144. 146- 
150, 151, 153, 154. 156, 184, 185, 
199, 200. 201, 202, 218, 235. 

Mary Stuart, 357. 

Mason, Wm., 297. 

Massacre of Paris, The (by Lee), 267; 
(by Marlowe) , 89, 144. 

Massinger, Philip. 177, 199, 211, 214, 
215, 319-336, 230, 231, 233-235, 
237, 240, 251, 252, 255, 285, 293, 
322. 

Matthews, Brander, 373. 

Maturin, C. R., 344. 

May, Thomas, 235. 

Measure for Measure, 61 n., 169, 235, 
264. 

Meleager, 59. 

MelibcBus, 40. 

Merchant of Venice, The, 71. 

Merope, 295 n., 296, 304. 

Merry Wives of Windsor, 258, 297 n. 

Middleton, Thomas, 3, 137, 199, 215, 
317-319, 229, 240. 



INDEX 



Miller, James, 295. 

Milman, H. H., 344, 346, 356, 358. 

Milton, John, 14, 260, 264. 

Mirandola, 345, 358. 

Mirror for Magistrates, The, 32, 52, 70, 

90. 
Mirza, 236. 
Misfortunes of Arthur, The, 51, 52, 

57, 58. 
Miss Sara Sampson, 318. 
Mitford, Miss, 345, 347, 358, 361. 
Mithridates, 267, 368, 269. 
Monk's Tale, The, 31, 32. 
Moore, Edward, 306, 318. 
More, Miss Hannah, 306, 311. 
More, Sir Thomas, 118, 119. 
Morel, L., 300 n., 302 n. 
Morte D' Arthur, The, 57. 
Morton, T., 335, 338. 
Mountaineers, The, 332, 333. 
Mourning Bride, The, 3, 375, 376, 

297 n., 351. 
Much Ado about Nothing, 162. 
Murderous Michael, 71. 
Murphy, Arthur, 295, 306, 308 n. 
Mussato, Albertino, 36. 
Mutius Scaevola, 71 n. 
My Last Duchess, 362. 
Mysteries of Udolpho, 330. 
Mysterious Husband, The, 319. 
Mysterious Mother, The, 322, 354. 

Nash, Thomas, 61, 100 n., 103, 111. 

Nero (fey Lee), 266, 267. 

Nero, Tragedy of (Anon.), 234. 

New Way to Pay Old Debts, A, 220. 

Nice Wanton, The, 29. 

Nightwalker, The, 274. 

Nine Days Wonder, The, 171 n. 

North, Christopher. See Wilson, John. 

Norton, Thomas, 52. 

Novellas Exemplares, 212. 

Octavia, 33, 

CEdipus (by Dryden and Lee), 261, 

267; by Gager), 59; (by Sophocles), 

18. 



Old Fortunatus, 139. 

O'Neil, Miss, 344. 

Orbecche, 56. 

Orestes (adaptation from Voltaire), 

295 n.; by Dryden), 263. 
Oroonoko, 274, 282, 335. 
Orphan, The, 270, 371, 274, 282, 368. 
Orphan of China, The, 295 n. 
Orrery, Earl of, 253, 257, 277. 
Osorio, 342. 
Othello, 163-166, 169, 170, 171, 185, 

194, 226, 265, 282, 292, 297 n., 299, 

309, 312, 358, 370. 
Otho the Great, 349. 
Otway, Thomas, 250, 251, 253, 369- 

373, 274, 275, 278, 279, 282, 284, 

289, 290, 292, 294, 316, 323, 331, 

351, 364, 368. 

Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 55, 70. 

Palamon and Arcyte, 58. 

Pamela, 317. 

Pammachius, 37, 39, 41. 

Paradise Lost, 260. 

Paris and Vienna, 71 n. 

Patient Griselda, 40, 345. 

Payne, John Howard, 344. 

Peele, George, 75. 79, 84, 107 n., 108, 

110-113, 132, 133, 146. 
Pembroke, Countess of, 142. 
Percy, 306. 

Pere de Famille, Le, 318. 
Perfidus Hetruscus, 60 n. 
Perkin Warbeck, 227. 
Pericles (adaptation by Lillo), 315. 
Persee et Demetrius, 298. 
Perseus and Andromeda, 71 n. 
Petrarch, 78. 
Phcedra (by Seneca), 56. 
Phcedra and Hippolitus (Smith's 

adaptation of Racine), 289, 290. 
Phedre, 195. 

Philaster, 203, 204, 282, 322 n. 
PhiUps, Ambrose, 290. 
Philotas, 142. 
PhcenisscB, 54. 
Pickering, John, 64. 



INDEX 



387 



Picture, The, 322 n. 

Pilgrim, The, 322 n. 

Pix, Mrs., 266. 

Pixdr^court, Ren^ de, 337. 

Pizarro, 327, 328, 335. 

Plautus, 21, 36, 39, 63. 

Plays Confuted, 72. 

Plays on the Passions, 339. 

Pledge, The, 346. 

Plutarch, 106, 108, 142, 154, 162, 175. 

Poetics of Aristotle, The, 8, 31, 43. 

Political Justice, 341. 

Politician, The, 232, 233. 

Pope, Alexander, 273. 

Pope Joan, or the Female Prelate, 

266. 
Preston, Thomas, 66. 
Pride of Life, The, 29. 
Princess of Cleve, The, 267. 
Procter, B., 345, 356. 
Progne, 58. 
Prometheus Unbound, 14, 298, 353, 

355. 
Promus and Cassandra, 52, 61 n., 

63 n., 69. 72. 
Prophetess, The, 214, 246. 
Ptolemy, 71. 

Puttenham, George, 44, 45. 
Pye. H. J., 307. 

Qv^en of Corinth, The, 214, 220. 
Quellen des Weltlichen Dramas, 55 n. 
Quinault, P., 245. 
Quintus Fabius, 71 n. 

Racine, 2, 7, 8, 13, 247, 248, 251, 256, 
268, 269, 272, 278, 287, 294, 297, 
298, 300, 359. 

Radcliffe, Mrs., 356. 

Radcliffe, Ralph, 40. 

Ralph Roister Doister, 39. 

Rape, 309. 

Ravenscroft, Edward, 266. 

Rawlins, Thomas, 236. 

Red Knight, The, 71 n. 

Rebellion, The, 236. 

Rehearsal, The, 259. 



Remorse, 343, 343, 344, 360 

Renegado, The, 221, 

Revenge, 298. 

Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, The 

(see Bussy D'Ambois), 144. 
Revenge of Hamlet, 150. 
Revenger's Tragedy, The, 199, 202. 
Reynolds, F., 332, 335, 338. 
Richard II, 109, 114, 117, 133-135. 

126, 136 ; anonymous play on, see 

Woodstock. 
Richard III (by Shakespeare), 114, 

117-133, 125, 172, 282, 292, 297 n., 

311,312. 
Richard III, True Tragedy of, 108, 

109, 112, 118, 119. 
Richard Duke of York, True Tragedy 

of, 115 n., 116. 
Richardson, Samuel, 275, 284. 
Richardus Tertius, 59. 
Richelieu, 345, 346, 358. 
Rienzi, 345, 358. 
Ring and Book, The, 14, 362. 
Ristori, Madame, 344. 
Ritwyse, John, 39. 
Rival Ladies, The, 251, 253. 
Rival Queens, The, 266, 282. 
Rivals, The, 319. 
Road to Ruin, The, 320. 
Robbers, The, 330, 342, 357. 
Rob Roy, 335. 
Rochester, Earl of, 258. 
Rollo. See Bloody Brother. 
Roman Actor, The, 224. 
Roman Father, The, 294. 
Roman Revenge, The, 304. 
Romeo and Juliet, 12, 114, 136-134. 

136, 146, 185, 226, 236, 270, 292. 
Romeus and Juliet, 127. 
Rossetti, D. G., 347. 
Rowe, Nicholas, 383-389, 291, 294, 

307, 316, 323. 
Rowley, William, 318, 319, 227, 229. 
Royal Convert, The, 283. 
Royal Master, The, 232. 
Roxana, 59. 
Rymer. T., 250, 260. 



388 



INDEX 



Sackville, Thomas, 52. 

Samson Agonistes, 14, 264, 298. 

Santayana, George, 192 n. 

Sardanapalus, 345, 351, 358. 

Sarpedon, 71 n. 

Schelling, F. W. J. von, 359. 

Schiller, F. von, 327, 341, 357, 359, 
363. 

Scipio, Africanus, 71 n. 

Scornful Lady, The, 322 n. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 129, 262, 285, 312, 
335, 339, 341, 349, 350, 357, 361. 

Scudery, G. de, 247. 

Second Maiden's Tragedy, The, 199, 
201, 221. 

Secret Love, 259. 

Sejanus, 141-144, 172. 

Selimus, 108, 164. 

Semiramis, 295 n. 

Seneca, characteristics of his tragedies, 
33-36; their revival on the conti- 
nent, 36-38; in England, 38-46; 
English imitations of, 51-58; Latin 
imitations of at the English univer- 
sities, 58-61 ; influence of on popular 
plays, 62-69, 73-75; his models re- 
jected by Marlowe, 89-90; adapted 
by Kyd and others, 100-108, 113; 
his influence on Richard III, 118, 
119; on Ben Jonson, 143; on Chap- 
man, 144; on Marston and revenge 
tragedies, 146-154 passim; on Hanv- 
let, 159, 160; and traceable else- 
where in Shakespeare, 183-185 ; in 
later drama, 196, 215. 

Settle, Elkanah, 253, 266. 

Shell, R. L., 344. 

Shakespeare.his conception of tragedy, 
8. 9; his relations to Kyd, 100, 104, 
105; to other predecessors, 107-111 ; 
his early tragedies and histories, 
113-116; King John, 116, 117; 
Richard III, 117-123; Richard II, 
123-126; Romeo and Juliet, 126- 
133; his relations to his contempo- 
raries, 136-147 passim; to the re- 
venge tragedies, 147-154; Julius 



CcBsar, 1 54 ; Hamlet, 1 55-1 62 ; Othello, 
162-166; Lear, 166-175; Antony 
and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, 175- 
179; summary of his work in tra- 
gedy, 181-195; his influence on 
EHzabethan successors, 196-241 
passim,; Restoration criticisms and 
alterations of his tragedies. 248- 
252, 260-262, 264-266, 269, 270, 
277-279; his plays in the eighteenth 
century, 282, 292-294; Rowe's 
indebtedness to, 288, 289; Thom- 
son's indebtedness. 301, 302; Hill's, 
304, 305; influence of Othello, 309; 
his plays in the patent theatres, 331 , 
332; his influence on the roman- 
ticists, 339; on Wordsworth, 341; 
on Coleridge, 342; on Lamb, 343; 
his influence dominant in nineteenth 
century tragedy, 355-363 passim; 
and through the whole course of 
English tragedy, 370, 372, 376. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 14. 182, 338, 
347, 348, 353-355, 356-359, 367, 
368. 

Sheridan, R. B., 327. 

Sheridan, Thomas, 299. 

She Stoops to Conquer, 319. 

Shiriey, James, 199, 339-234, 235, 
237, 238. 240, 251, 252, 255, 256, 
282, 344. 

Sicily and Naples, 236. 

Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 275, 290, 293, 
308 n., 340. 

Sidney. Sir Philip, 6, 44, 53, 72, 73. 

Siege of Damascus, The, 297 n., 308 n. 

Siege of Rhodes, The, 244, 252. 

Slave, The, 335, 336. 

Small, R. A., 162 n. 

Smith, Edmund, 289. 

Soane, G., 338. 

Soliman and Perseda, 100 n., 105, 106, 
127. 128. 

Solitary Knight, The, 71 n. 

Solymannidce, 59. 

Sophocles, 7, 9, 32, 37, 58, 187, 298, 
370, 375. 



INDEX 



Sophonisba (by Lee), 266; (by Mar- 

ston), 147; (by Thomson), 299, 300; 

(by Trissino), 38. 
Southerne, Thomas, 373-375, 277, 

279, 282, 284, 294, 316, 321, 323. 
Southey, Robert, 337, 341. 
Spanish Friar, The, 262, 263. 
Spanish Tragedy, The, 100-105, 110, 

113, 115, 147, 148, 151. 
Spartan Dame, The, 274. 
Spenser, Edmund, 78. 79, 107. 
Steele. Sir Richard, 297 n., 317, 
StoU, Elmer, E., 151 n. 
Stowe, John. 70. 
Strafford, 346, 363. 
Stranger, The, 327, 328. 
Suckling, Sir John, 234. 
Surrender of Calais, The, 332, 333. 
Surrey, Earl of, 53. 
Swinburne, A., 14, 339, 347, 361, 364. 

Tale of Mystery, The, 334. 
Talfourd, Sir Thomas N., 346. 
Tamburlaine, 58, 74, 87-97 passim, 

100, 104, 107, 119 n. 
Tamerlane, 383, 384, 291, 297 n. 
Tancred and Gismunda, 51, 55-57, 

61 n., 68, 69. 127, 128. 
Tancred and Sigismunda, 299, 300, 

302. 
Tancrede, 295 n. 
Tasso, 78. 

Tate, Nahum, 246, 266, 292, 301. 
Taylor, Sir Henry, 361. 
Telemo, 71 n. 

Tempest, The, 179, 259, 264. 
Temptation of Our Lord, The, 41. 
Tender Husband, The, 317. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 182, 355, 364. 
Terence, 23, 37, 39. 
Terry, Daniel, 338, 350. 
Thebias, 53. 
Theobald, Lewis, 293. 
Theodosius, 246, 267. 
Thierry and Theodoret, 203. 
Thomson, James, 292, 399-303, 307. 
Three Estates, The, 41. 



Three Laws, The, 41. 

Thyestes (by Crowne), 263, 266; (by 

Seneca), 56. 
Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes, 71 n. 
Timon of Athens, 178. 265, 282, 297 n, 
'Tis Pity She 's a Whore, 227, 228. 
Titus Andronicus, 108, 114, 115, 120, 

136, 164, 237. 282. 
Titus and Berenice, 269. 
Titus and Gisippus, 40. 
Tobin, John, 343. 
Tom Jones, 321. 
Tom Thumb, 314 n, 
Tonumbeius, 59. 
Tourneur. CyrU, 139. 151, 153, 154, 

156, 199, 202, 217, 234, 267, 348. 
Tragedy a la Mode, 314 n. 
Tragedies of the Last Age, 260. 
Traitor, The, 233, 252, 282, 344. 
Treveth, Nicholas, 36. 
Trial, The, 339. 
Trissino, G. G., 38. 
Triumph of Honor, The, 322 n. 
Troades, 42. 

Troilus and Cressida, 162 n., 261, 265. 
Troublesome Reign of King John, The, 

85, 87, 88. 
Tupper, J. W., 255 n. 
Twelve Labors of Hercules, The, 71 n. 
Two Foscari, The, 346, 351. 
Two Lamentable Tragedies, The, 140. 
Two Noble Kinsmen, The, 211, 
Tyrannic Love, 259. 

Udall, Nicholas, 58. 

Ulysses, 283. 

Ulysses Redux, 59. 

Unhappy Favorite, The, 273, 282. 

Unnatural Combat, The, 224. 

Valentinian, 313, 217, 252, 282. 

Valiant Scot, The, 236. 

Venice Preserved, 370, 371, 278, 282, 

297 n., 351. 
Victor, B., 318. 
Virgil, Polydore, 119. 
Virginius, 344, 345, 358. 



390 



INDEX 



Virgin Martyr, The, 221, 224, 252. 
Virtue Betrayed, or Anne Bullen, 273. 
Volpone, 233. 
Voltaire, 247. 276. 290, 394-397, 299, 

302, 304, 305, 324. 

Wade, Thomas, 345, 347. 
Wallenstein (by Glapthorne), 235; 

(by Schiller), 357. 
Walpole, Horace, 322, 354. 
Ward, A. W., Ill, 270 n., 287. 
Warning for Fair Women, A, 140, 147, 

316. 
Wars of Cyrus, The, 106, 108. 
Watson, Thomas, 39. 
Wat Tyler, 341 n. 
Weavers, The, 12. 
Webbe, WUUam, 57. 
Webster, John, 153, 169, 198, 199, 

303, 303, 217-219, 226, 230, 234, 
237, 239, 240, 252, 256, 262, 348. 

Wells, Charles, 339, 347. 

Werner, 345, 351, 357. 

Werter, 323. 

What d'ye Call It, 314 n. 

What Mischief Worketh in the Mind 

of Man, 71. 
Wheel of Fortune, The, 320. 
Whetstone, George, 61 n., 62 n., 72. 
White Devil, The, 198, 199, 202, 252. 



Whitehead, William, 294, 307. 

Wife's Trial, The, 343. 

Wild Gallant, The, 251. 

William Tell, 344. 

Wilmot, Robert, 55. 56. 

Wilson, John, 163. 347. 

Winter's Tale, A, 179, 342. • 

Witch, The, 3, 218. 

Witch of Edmonton, The, 227. 

Woodstock, 109, 112, 114. 

Woman Killed with Kindness, A, 140, 

141, 272, 289, 318, 328. 
Woman's Love, 345. 
Women Beware Women, 218. 
Women Pleaded, 322 n. 
Wordsworth, William, 337, 338. 341, 

343. 357. 
Wounds of Civil War, The, 108, 142. 
Wycherley, William, 258. 

Xenophon, 106. 

Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 140, 318. 
Young, Edward, 398, 399. 307. 

Zapolya, 342. 

Zara, 295 n., 299, 304, 305. 
Zenobia, 308 n., 351. 
Zobeide, 295 n. 



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